Feb. 1--Death and taxes may be the only certainty, but it's almost as certain that, when the conversation turns to taxes, it won't be long before daggers are drawn, fi guratively speaking.

A case in point has been the public backlash against Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. Make that a case with a very sharp point. After it was revealed that Geithner had neglected to pay more than $34,000 in federal income taxes over several years, the general public leaped upon Geithner's public persona like Brutus and his fellow conspirators upon Julius Caesar

The unpaid taxes dated back to his work with the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2004. U.S. citizens who work for the agency must pay their own Social Security and Medicare taxes, known together as the self-employment tax, and he did not.

An Internal Revenue Service audit revealed the problem, and Geithner paid off the debt, with interest.

At his confi rmation appearance before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee last week, the former head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York denied any criminal intent or willful negligence.

"These were careless mistakes, ... but they were unintentional," Geithner told the committee.

Still, his protestations of innocence can scarcely be heard above the public clamor for his political blood.

Why such anger? The fact is, we tend to react viscerally to any semblance of favoritism in the tax code. Generally speaking, we hate being obliged to part with our money, and we deeply resent the complex and, to many, impenetrable tax code that fritters away America's trust as it taxes patience along with income.

But the politicians are willing to take one -- a big one -- for the team in this case. The solons agreed that, because of his experience in finance and in the Bush administration's efforts to bolster the fi nancial sector, Geithner is pre-eminently qualified to lead the treasury. The finance committee confirmed him, and the full Senate followed suit.

So Geithner will survive beyond the Ides of March, just as we usually live past April 15, although a bit the poorer for it.

But we are not here to praise Geithner; we simply want to ensure that the good he might do is not interred with his political bones. We will assume for now that the treasury secretary is an honorable, if occasionally careless, man. Given the magnitude of the crisis he must confront, he will have ample opportunities to redeem himself.

Because of the collapsing fi -- nancial structure and past government attempts to shore it up, Geithner has unprecedented authority and responsibility. The government owns fi nancial giants AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with sizable pieces of several banks and huge amounts of doubtful assets pledged as collateral for loans.

The financial sector is into the U.S. Treasury for almost $14 trillion in funds spent, committed or promised. Geithner has to manage that, along with hundreds of billions in bailout funds, in effect becoming an investment banker and money manager.

Most urgent, the repercussions of the crisis have sent the entire world into turmoil, costing some of us their last measure of prosperity. Geithner is the key player in restructuring the fatally flawed global fi nancial-regulatory system.

Whether that system can be redeemed is up in the air -- a terrifying thought that eclipses whether one person -- regardless of his position -- overlooked payment of self-employment taxes. We should sheath our daggers, galling though it may be, and focus on the uncertainties that, unresolved, will continue to undo our economy.

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