[dmoy]

that's literally what they do though?

I've (unintentionally) fucked up my taxes like a good 30% of the time because I didn't understand something or a broker literally just missed 25% of the transactions I made in the 1099 they sent me, or w/e.

Every time without fail, some 1-3 years later the IRS sends a CP-whatever saying "yea you done fucked up, you owe $X with $Y interest ($Y is inevitably really low), because of Z missing income from your form". And then I just log on and pay and sometimes I send them a reply letter with whatever missing document, and that's it. (Since they know all this, it would be nice if they could just preemptively send me a 1040 to sign anyways, but oh well)

One year they even sent me a check when I fucked up in the other direction. No interest though lol.

[dmoy]

The difference is, if you're making <$20k/yr and have $100 in your bank account, and the IRS sends you a $1k bill, often you panic and ignore it instead of calling and waiting for 5 hours to talk or otherwise figure out how to set up a payment plan.

And that extra $1k disappeared immediately to make other ends meet.