Perhaps you have experienced the feeling. You see a day on the calendar and you think, “This date is familiar, but I can’t remember why.”

If you are lucky, it doesn’t turn out to be your anniversary or your mom’s birthday.

So, exactly 2.5 years to the day that we left the United States for Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates, there it was: “April 15” looking back at me on the calendar and, honestly, it took me the longest time to remember why the date really was significant.

April 15 … a famous battle? Someone’s birthday? A holiday somewhere? I racked my brain. “It certainly seems familiar …”

Late in the day, it finally hit me: April 15 is the the day income taxes are due in the United States!

Took me a while to remember that. After only 2.5 years.

Back in the U.S., local TV news stations usually lead the 11 p.m. broadcast with “late filers” going down to the Post Office to get their returns postmarked before midnight. With interviews of people sitting behind the wheels of their cars, giving one-line answers as to why they filed so late.

Granted, I’m not sure I ever went up to the last day before filing. I run late, but not about something that would make a person nervous about having to pay some large penalty. Not more than once or twice, as a young person, doing my own IRS forms, did I take it to the last day.

The real reason it took me most of April 15 to recall the significance of April 15?

In Abu Dhabi … in the UAE … we pay no income tax. None. No one pays income tax to the government here.

And it clearly is evident that a person can become conditioned to this “no income tax” thing quite quickly.

The first year or so, it seems weird. Whatever salary you are being paid in the UAE … that’s how much money you keep. No “withholding” … but also no monster tax bill somewhere down the line.

This is how it once was, of course, in the U.S. Before the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913.

Now, a significant number of Americans turn over at least 25 percent of their annual income to the U.S. federal government.

If you find that a difficult concept to accept, imagine not having to do it for several years — which could land you in jail, of course, if you’re living and working in the U.S.

It’s just … huge.

I have $4 here (or 4 dirhams), and all $4 is mine. I don’t have to give $1 (or 1 dirham) to the government.

(The UAE also has no “state” income taxes, nor any sales tax nor excise taxes. Literally the only taxes I can think of are on alcohol and cigarettes. It’s what comes from an economy fueled by selling lots and lots of oil.)

Sometimes, those of us working in the UAE begin to forget what a big deal this is. Especially those of us who hail from countries where the income tax is even higher.

People who have been here, then gone home and taken a job, have told of being shocked (shocked!) to see so much of their income taken by the government.

Let’s just put it this way: It’s far easier to grow accustomed to paying no income tax than the other way round.)

That is the significance of April 15: Giving the U.S. government 25 or even 35 percent of your money.

You would think I would never, ever forget that.

Perhaps it’s a pleasant sort of amnesia.