>> Supposedly the IRS has 3 years to catch a mistake.
It’s mistakes, not the taxpayers’.
No, your mistakes. I know, when I was a waitress, one year I forgot to report allocated tips. ($400 of income). Just under 3 years later I got a 20 page letter from them detailing the unreported income on my W-2 and how much fines and penalties I had racked up over the 3 years. What made it even more excruciating was they made a math error and had doubled everything ($400 became 800 etc). So I had to admit an error but also correct them. This was before computers and internet so I had to hand write and snail mail my explanation and defense. Every time I called, my “file” had mysteriously gone to someone else’s desk or office. It took weeks and weeks to get it straightened out. All over $400 in unreported income from someone who maybe made $15,000 that year. There are many many horrible things going on in our government today, the IRS is just one of them. Sadly much of it is because we as a people trusted the government to do right, and we haven’t been watching.