A housewife in a northern Chicago suburb answered an insistent knock upon her door only to find not one but three IRS agents demanding to see her daughter. They wanted to know why $1,400 in savings account interest reported by a bank had not been declared by her daughter on her Form 1040. The terrified woman called her husband, who called their accountant, who called the agents to explain. The money was a gift from the daughter's grandparents, he told the agents. But why wasn't the daughter available to personally explain that to them, the IRS agents asked? Sorry, said the accountant. She was away for the day—in her second-grade class at school.

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