The other day a CPA friend of mine received a subpoena from the Alabama Revenue Department. The criminal investigation subpoena asked the CPA to produce his entire tax return files for a particular individual filer for the last three years. The CPA knew that this individual had taken some deductions and tax positions that were more likely than not to be disallowed but he though that they had say a 25% chance of being upheld. The CPA remembered that he did not get paid for doing this person's taxes last year but he has a history of being slow to pay. Just never this slow before. Some of the things in the CPAs file might be embarrassing to the individual because the CPA advised the individual of the riskiness of some of his tax positions. Also, the CPA had up charged this individual a higher fee because of his slow payment history and because the CPA also had some risk on the tax positions taken. The subpoena says that if the CPA produced the requester a copy of the records by a certain date, (now 2 weeks away) then the CPA did not have to show up and testify. What are the CPAs ethical responsibilities and what actions should he/she take?