Is the taxman Facebook-stalking you?

Just when you thought the only people you had to worry about offending with your Facebook profile were prospective employers, parents, and creepy sex offenders, The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that tax collectors are going online to hunt down deadbeats.

According to the Journal, "In Minnesota, authorities were able to levy back taxes on the wages of a long-sought tax evader after he announced on MySpace that he would be returning to his hometown to work as a real-estate broker and gave his employer's name. The state collected several thousand dollars, the full amount due."

Tax collectors still aren't allowed to add people as friends under false pretenses, but this is bad news for anyone who doesn't pay taxes and then brags about how much they make and lists a hometown on their Facebook and MySpace profiles without setting the accounts as private.

But realistically: How much money are they really going to collect hunting down people on social networking sites? It all sounds like a ruse by government workers to convince their bosses not to restrict Facebook access in the workplace, as so many employers are doing.