“IRS audit“. The very words strike fear into the hearts of, well, most taxpayers.  And that is exactly what one IRS employee was hoping for. But, like a boomerang, her words came back to hurt her.

Here’s what happened

Edith Squillace, of San Pablo, borrowed $3,750 from someone. (Documents don’t name who but we can safely assume it wasn’t a bank. Possibly a friend or family member). Seems like it was a regular loan for the kinds of things that we might all need loans for. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Later, Edith tried to get out of repaying the loan. That is not an unusual circumstance, either.

But here’s where it gets funny: Edith Squillace was an IRS employee. Her job was pretty mundane, actually: She answered tax questions from tax payers. However, in trying to get out of paying back the loan, she committed a felony: She threatened the lender with a tax audit if they didn’t forgive the loan.

Fortunately, the lender knew better than to take Edith’s tax audit process threat seriously. Edith was indicted with a charge of attempted extortion by a federal grand jury. It turns out, you can’t use the pretense of your job to extort people (which is something I’m sure most of us knew already).

Now, I freely criticize the IRS and many of their tax enforcement policies, but I can’t hold the IRS at fault for the actions of a foolish employee.

I can only hope that Edith is no longer working for the IRS. And if she is, you can be sure that she’s going to watch what she says when her mortgage is up for renewal!

Read the full tax news article at SFGate.com.