Paying your taxes

I told the kids about the recent incident with former senator Daschle, who Obama had nominated for health secretary. Daschle had failed to report the income that a car and driver represented, and pay the appropriate taxes. He had to withdraw from the nomination for health secretary...

So I reminded the kids of my cardinal rule for judging questionable actions (not that cheating with your taxes is anything but "Black and White"). If you wouldn't want to read about it on the front page of your newspaper, don't do it. Actions that might appear to have small consequences at the time can snowball to have huge (and very nasty consequences). A few days later Michael Phelps got into trouble, and had his Kellogs sponsorship canceled, for smoking marihuana in public...

I also told the kids about the time the IRS audited me. They checked every account and every document for that year. It was painful. Fortunately, I had paid all my taxes in full and they closed the audit without requiring to pay anything extra.