DOING THE RIGHT THING

The other day I had a conversation with a woman I know who works in a service industry. Tips are part of her income. We got on the subject of income tax returns, and that’s when she acknowledged that she seldom reported any of her tips to the government when it came time to file her taxes. I didn’t press her on the subject, because I know she struggles financially and I figured that it was none of my business, but then she offered an unapologetic justification for her deception – all those lazy people collecting food stamps, and that’s when she got the same sermon I’m issuing here.

Do the right thing, and stop worrying about what everybody else is doing!

There’s a well-known adage that character is defined by what you do when nobody else is looking, and there’s no better time for testing character than when people file their income tax returns. Most filers assume the government will not look too closely at them, and odds are that’s true, but whether or not the government will audit a person’s return should never be the issue. If a person has character and is doing the right thing when nobody is watching, it won’t matter whether the government audits a tax return or not.

I asked the woman I described earlier whether she would feel comfortable blaming lazy people collecting food stamps if an I.R.S. auditor wanted an explanation for why she didn’t report her tips as income.

“No,” the woman replied, as if my question was a stupid one, and then she repeated her assertion that she was entitled to rip off the system, because others (at least in her mind) were doing it too.

At that point, I pressed further and asked the woman what she intended to tell an I.R.S. auditor was her reason for filing a fraudulent return.

“Fraudulent return,” she huffed. “You make it sound like I’m a crook or something.”

I then pointed out that filing a false tax return was a crime, but she dismissed my point without giving it much thought.

“They’re not going to care about my tax return,” she said. “If they do, I’ll figure out what to say later.” That was the end of that conversation!

When people don’t want to do the right thing, they know what they’re doing is wrong, but they frequently have a handy justification (again, at least in their mind) that excuses their wrongdoing. Really, it’s just a form of self-delusion, because even the woman I just describes knows in her heart how stupid it would sound to tell an I.R.S. auditor that she lied on her taxes because there are lazy people collecting food stamps. The food stamp excuse is just what helps her sleep at night.

People with character don’t lie on their tax returns. That’s because those who live their lives determined to maintain character don’t have to worry about doing the right thing. It’s automatic for them.