This was the title of the fictional rogue General Flashman’s memoirs, as discovered in a saleroom by the late G. M. Fraser. It suits well the departure of RPO chief David Williams, who implemented the current tax preparer registration regime, and the arrival at that Office of Ms. Carol Campbell, whose “vast understanding of tax law and of tax preparation issues” (to quote Mr. Williams’ farewell address) will doubtless be put to good use in the ongoing enrollment of all the world’s tax preparers.

Mr. Williams did indeed move the football. While giving heed to the stakeholders, he furthered Doug Shulman’s initiative with all due deliberate speed, and then some. He did get the Registered Tax Return Preparer initiative out of the starting gate and down the backstretch.

See my blogpost “An Important Town Meeting”, 11/12/11, about the Great Registration. “Just sayin’, this year the decree went out from Douglas Augustus that all preparers must be registered; this is the first registration, when Douglas was Commissioner of Internal Revenue and Timothy was Secretary of the Treasury.  Of  course, all the world was to be taxed long before this.”

Mr. Williams’ parting exhortation to the untested and unregistered: get tested, get registered and come over to the right side.

It remains to be seen, of course, how many Forms 14157 (a/k/a snitch and bitch) will wind up at Mail Stop 58 at Town & Country Commons, turning out the unregistered and unCirculared.

But I wish Mr. Williams all the best. And extend fraternal greetings to Ms. Campbell.