Tax System: If the "smart people" can't understand, what about us "common folk"?

There seems to be lots of failure to pay taxes going on for some of Obama's nominees (Timothy Geithner, Tom Daschle, Nancy Killefer). The good thing for them, is that so far they have been able to pay the back taxes and penalties with the stroke of a pen on a check. As someone commentated on the site of a major news source: no wonder the system has no money. The problem for the rest of us, is that when we make an honest mistake on our taxes, we often cannot afford the past tax bill and the penalties and interest.

Just makes you wonder about lots of other folks out there and their true tax status. And, these are educated people, many with CPAs who are making these tax errors. Is our system so complicated? If these people can't understand the system enough to pay properly... how can we "common folk"? The reality of the situation is that many of us common folk are often paying too much in taxes because we don't fully understand the deductions we are entitled to.

Is it possible that these educated people who miss paying taxes are really taking a calculated risk? If they aren't audited (or appointed to a high level position by the President), that's just money in the bank.