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by horsawlarway 1897 days ago
The simplest answer is that returning it isn't free.
2 comments

Also there is a good question is there some limit or ratio of tainted coins that would be considered non incriminating. Or if there isn't would single satoshi taint all coins? If there were wouldn't dilution of funds be possible? That is wash them by sending to wallets with enough funds...
Ok so use it to pay the fee, returning the rest.
You just washed part of the BTCs which is now owned by the miner.
That's assuming a BTC miner even agrees to process the transaction. Why would a BTC miner want to deal with the headache of tainted bitcoins? It's such a problem that Marathon Digital Holdings, a major bitcoin miner, has stated they will refuse to process transactions from tainted addresses. In the near future, I expect more mining pools to do the same.
If they were send to you, someone does process them.