Tax Preparers Are Cheaters?

Say it aint so!  Have we reached the point when the people that we trust to prepare our taxes are cheaters?  Well, The Justice Department is after the Jackson Hewitt tax services for just that very thing.  They are saying that more than 70 million dollars worth of false returns were filed by the Jackson Hewitt folks.  The returns were aimed at either inflating customer refunds or reducing their tax payments.

What I found interesting were the comments that came out of the court documents so far. It was stated that the managers of these Jackson Hewitt services directed employees to not question or turn away customers who knowingly provided false information but instead prepare and file their tax returns. (Hey employees - you knew the right thing to do and chose to not do it.  And don't give me the "I would lose my job if I didn't do what my boss said" excuse.  You can always get another job.)

In one case, it was indicated that a barber claimed using 25,000 gallons of gas for business use.  That comes out to 1,370 traveled miles each day.  Now there's a barber who has a long commute! Again, the managers and the employees knew that this was outlandish but they went ahead and filed this barber's claim anyway. 

The court documents also stated that in some cases, managers and employees from these franchises received kickbacks from customers in exchange for filing these false claims. (Again, this was a moment that employees and managers knew right from wrong - but they chose wrong).

Now here's where the ethics lessons come in to play.  Each one of these employees and managers knew the right thing to do.  They either knew that what they were receiving from clients were inflated or falsified information or that their managers were asking them to do something that was clearly illegal.  That was the "pop quiz" moment that they failed.  They knew right from wrong and chose wrong as their option.  The managers who were asked to put pressure on their employees to drive up customer volume at the expense of accuracy and honesty knew what they were doing.  They also failed the "pop quiz" of ethical behavior.

This is just one more example that we can use to our benefit in teaching business owners, employees and managers the "right thing" to do when ethical situations might come about.