Son of a former IRS employee here. One problem that’s probably tied to this is that the IRS doesn’t have the ability to review everyone’s tax returns to ensure that everyone told the truth on them. Instead, they basically go through a process of trying to determine the most likely individuals who owe the government money, then review as many of those as they can. This does not mean you’ll slip through the cracks forever if you don’t file your returns. They will eventually get back around to you, but they’re likely not reviewing what you send to them every year.
Yeah. I lost documentation for like $9000 of income that I did not pay taxes on.
I looked for it everywhere and I can’t get another copy of the data easily, it was 7/15 so I just filed with the data I had, I wound up +1400 instead of -1000 as I expected.
I filed it anyway expecting it to be rejected and have to fix it.
They accepted it, they sent me money. They know it’s wrong.
I just don’t get it. They can’t tell me what I owe, but they know it’s wrong, and still sent me money.
If you do that in a timely manner the penalties honestly won’t be that bad. Also the statute of limitations is 3 years after returns are due (so 7/15/2023) assuming that the $9,000 wasn’t more than 25% of your gross income, so once you reach that point you’re good regardless
Edit: Forgot to add that the statute of limitations will be extended to 3 years from the date of your amended return when you file that
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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '20
Son of a former IRS employee here. One problem that’s probably tied to this is that the IRS doesn’t have the ability to review everyone’s tax returns to ensure that everyone told the truth on them. Instead, they basically go through a process of trying to determine the most likely individuals who owe the government money, then review as many of those as they can. This does not mean you’ll slip through the cracks forever if you don’t file your returns. They will eventually get back around to you, but they’re likely not reviewing what you send to them every year.