This is not our usual springtime 15th tax season.  This is our fall, extension time tax season. In April, the Internal Revenue Service  has been known to sprinkle the news with stories that scare taxpayers into compliance. The IRS knows that scare tactics can help people be more honest when filing their returns. Lately, the IRS has been in the news for their misdeeds. This is not the kind of publicity they choose for themselves. They are showing their human side. Every government office is staffed with individuals. These employees are human beings, just like you and me. Sometimes a single person may forget they are a civil servant. They forget their job is to serve the public. The fall victim to the emotional pull of power and greed. When I was an auditor in training I heard a story about a former co-worker. Former is the key word here. Usually, when management gets wind of a choice of action that is outside an employee’s job description, that employee gets noticed. A good manager will first counsel the employee. The manager will give that person a chance to clean up their act. They will give that person an opportunity to “fly right”. Sometimes, though, the misdeed is so wrong that the person is fired and maybe also arrested for committing a crime. This story was one I heard years ago. The story I heard was about taxpayers writing their checks for taxes due. Most people just wrote their checks payable to “I R S”. I wrote my checks to IRS, too. Then we were instructed to completely spell out the words “Internal Revenue Service”. Would you have thought that somebody was changing the letters “IRS” to “MRS” and adding a last name? That is exactly what happened. That employee was altering the taxpayers’ checks. (More than one!)  That employee was stealing the taxpayers’ tax money and putting it in their own bank account. The crime was against both the taxpayers and against the government. Today we are asked to write our checks to the “United States Treasury”. Every year I must attend a certain amount of what is called continuing professional education, CPE, to maintain my credentials. Every year the tax laws change and I focus on knowing what I need to know in order to do my best job for you. My mind was never figuring out how to break the laws.  But there are plenty of people who do just that. Lately the IRS has been caught with their hand “in the cookie jar” so to speak. They have delayed the applications of certain groups asking for legitimate tax-exempt status. They have wrongly targeted certain individuals for audit. These are examples of human beings who have let their access to power cloud their judgment. If you keep your eyes on doing the right thing, you’ll never have to be worried about any negative consequence. You’ll be able to sleep soundly every night.