I might be pushing it by stretching some end-of-last-year/beginning-of-this-year thoughts into the second week of the year, but hey, at least I’m warning you early in this article that I am about to do it.

And yes, it seems everyone and their second cousin’s sister-in-law craft year-end lists (we rank our top 10 pointless relatives inside!), but some of them seem to have some value. For instance, I believe those of you who own your businesses could benefit from this article that discusses the best business lessons of 2016.

The lesson that stood out most to me on the list was “Understand Metrics and Data, and Don’t Misuse Them.” Working in the accounting industry, I have certainly seen people who know the answers they want before they even look at their financials. Unfortunately, there is often a way to shift things around to make the numbers give those answers, at least at first.

Such machinations eventually catch up with those businesses, though. Instead of looking for the mental bandage of seeing what you want to see, use the real numbers to make moves that can get your business where you want it without having to fudge anything.

I also want to highlight the last item on the list  “Give Employees a Way to Shine.” I am not one who has been able to embrace a millennial mindset of complete equality in the workplace, and believe that some structure tends to keep a necessary level of focus. I do, however, like this idea of making sure that everyone has a way to show what they can do and outperform expectations. Not only will the business as a whole benefit from those shining moments, it is also a good way to identity potential and the employees you want to do your best to keep in the fold.

A fact that I cannot possibly avoid is that this time of year also signals the beginning of tax season. Yes, I also mentioned this last week when I mentioned tax scams topping the Better Business Bureau’s list of scams. But when it comes to taxes, you’re just going to have to get used to hearing about them for the next few months.

Tax scams themselves, though, came back around since I last wrote. The IRS is continuing its efforts to stay ahead of criminals taking advantage of their system, and recently gathered people together from across the tax landscape to discuss security measures.

I have been positive in the past about how the IRS is being proactive in its stance surrounding tax fraud, but I was especially impressed when I read in this article that there was a 50 percent reduction in the number of affidavits of taxpayer identity theft that were filed with the IRS last year. Now, I did just say that one should not move numbers around to make them show what you want, but that number is big enough that even if the IRS has moved some numbers around to make this one look really good, there is a great deal of positivity behind it.

There is so much money involved that the IRS has definite reasons to do its best to stay ahead of those who want to take advantage of it. Maybe with that much interest, it could even lead to advances that will be helpful to cyber security beyond the tax world.

Or maybe I’m just still holding on to too much early-year optimism.