Ethical Behavior!

Ethics:  Over the last few months I’ve been watching some television shows which feature an advertisement which has me asking some internal questions and as usual, come to you for some enlightenment!  We’re approaching (too rapidly, methinks!!) that April 15^th deadline for having our taxes for 2008 filed and the amount paid or the refund requested.  We will all do our share (it will seem to many like much more than their share!) to assist our government to find its way through this muddled economic mess!  Some will have to borrow money to pay their share!  Some will realize that receiving a refund is only one way to loan money to the government interest free (it’s your money! It was your money in January of 2008 and you haven’t had use of it for many months!!)

Now to the commercials – they sound like this:  “We owed the government $933,456.57, and ‘tax associates worked with the IRS and reduced our payment to $10,900.00 – saved us over $900.000.00 dollars!”  Well, you get the idea – and there are many companies running these ads and the people who have had their tax obligation look like pretty normal people!  One relatively attractive, intelligent looking middle-aged woman even adds, “We just hired the right people to save us money!”

WHAT?  These people ‘owed’ the government thus and so much money, they hired the right people and saved well beyond half of their debt????  What’s wrong with this picture? 

 Am I missing something here?  None of these people say anything about mis-figuring their taxable income!  None of them suggest that they have made a mistake in calculating the tax owed!  None of them seems the least bit embarrassed about hiring someone “ . . . who formerly worked for the IRS and knew what to do. “! 

 Am I the only one who tilts my head to one side with a question in my mind, when these advertisements come onto my screen?  I plan to pay my taxes in accordance with what my friend, Charles, tells me I owe!  I remember my dad proudly announcing to all who would listen:  “Taxes are the price I pay to live in the greatest country in the world!”  My dad would not have hired ‘Tax Associates”!

 What do you think?