To avoid looking like Scrooge, the Internal Revenue Service typically lets up around the holidays in its hounding of tax delinquents.

But this month, the indulgence began even before Macy’s was decorated. The Times’s David Cay Johnston reported yesterday that on Oct. 10, the I.R.S. commissioner Mark Everson told his troops to delay tax enforcement in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina  until after the midterm elections and the holiday season.

Until after the elections?

To explain his action, Mr. Everson said that a pre-election reprieve was as routine as the Christmastime hiatus. Four former I.R.S. commissioners interviewed by Mr. Johnston disputed that.

Mr. Everson also said that in his mind the elections were part of a continuum that ran through the holidays. That would make him the only person in the country who envisions Congressional campaigns as the start of Christmas shopping season.