7-Eleven is now going to help Uncle Sam get what’s owed to him.

Under a new program introduced Thursday by the Internal Revenue Service, individual taxpayers can pay their tax bill with cash at over 7,000 participating stores. No credit card, no bank account, just cash.

And a fee of $3.99, which is about the cost of three Big Gulps.

Born in 1927 and propagated by its guardians into a chain of nearly 10,500 stores in North America that pump out 14 million Slurpee beverages every month, 7-Eleven’s tax business seems a bit out of character with a store that sells a lot of gum, snacks and coffee.

But the IRS, in partnership with ACI Worldwide’s OfficialPayments.com andPayNearMe, says the idea is to make it easier for taxpayers to pay their bill, not to mention a way to make it easier for the IRS to collect that money.

“We continue to look for new ways to provide services for our taxpayers,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said in a statement. “Taxpayers have many options to pay their tax bills by direct debit, a check or a credit card, but this provides a new way for people who can only pay their taxes in cash without having to travel to an IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center.”

The service, which caps payments at $1,000 per day, will send users an email from OfficialPayments.com to let them know their money has been received, thus reducing the chance that they’ll lose sleep — or go to jail for tax evasion. To use it, taxpayers must follow several steps before walking into their nearest Slurpee outlet, starting with clicking onto the IRS payment page and submitting personal information. Once that’s done, the user will receive an email with a link to a payment code.

IRS spokesman Raphel Tulino said the 7-Eleven service, available for now at selected stores in 34 states including California, offers just one more way “for taxpayers to pay their taxes. We also introduced Direct Pay a year ago, where you can pay with a debit from your bank account. This new service is a way to pay in cash without having to come into an IRS office.”

Contact Patrick May at 408-920-5689 or follow him at Twitter.com/patmaymerc.