Mistakes are not a crime. The people that goes to court for tax evasion are the ones that commit fraud: they knowingly lie in the tax forms to avoid paying taxes. It includes people that forges expenses, or other documents.

It hardly ever raises to the level of crime.

The issue is that the IRS has 7 years to audit a tax return, and since taxes are due at the time you receive the income, the interest is backdated if you happen to underpay taxes and it compounds. So if they audited your 2019 return today and you underpaid $1k, you’d owe $1333 today with compound interest over those 6 years.

I think there's more nuance than that to it. I've made mistakes on my taxes, not been charged with a crime.

Small oops mistakes, I've never heard of someone being charged criminally.

BIG "yeah that was intentional" kinda obvious under-reporting of income, that turns into charges at times.

I actually had a big misunderstanding in terms of amounts once where the IRS thought I cashed out a large 401k. They simply sent me a letter and we mailed back and forth and I showed them that in fact I didn't cash it out and it just moved and it was all good.

It is not a crime to make a mistake. Who the hell is telling you this?

> Who the hell is telling you this?

The OP of the currently highest voted HN comment thread on this news article, for one:

    > Me: What if I get it wrong?

    > Gov’t: You go to prison

It couldn't be more obvious that's a joke, though.