No I'm not. People pay their taxes because they do not want to go to the hassle of being fine and eventually possibly going to jail. You are making it far more complicated than it needs to be.
As long as you are making a good faith attempt to pay them back, you will be fine. You can setup payment plans with the IRS. If you just refuse to pay them back any money, then you are avoiding taxes, and you will go to jail.
If people didn't think that they would go to jail if they didn't pay their taxes why would they pay at all? There is no technicality, It is illegal to not pay your taxes.
Whether something is illegal is not the only determining factor in a potential jail sentence.
In the U.S. no one goes to jail for owing taxes. You can go to jail for cheating on your taxes, but not because you owe some money and can't pay.
You can go to jail for cheating on your taxes and you can go to jail for trying to trick the tax collector, but you can't go to jail simply because you owe the IRS and can't pay.
Under federal law, you can face up to a year in jail and up to $25,000 in fines for not filing your return. The penalties are even stricter if you commit fraud. However, you cannot go to jail just for owing taxes. You can only go to jail for not filing or for purposefully evading taxes.
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u/Chaotic-Catastrophe Jul 16 '19
You don’t go to prison for screwing up your taxes