Are people who claim to not have filed or paid taxes for years telling the truth?

As someone who used to work in tax resolution, I can tell you these people aren't necessarily lying. The IRS is severely understaffed and backlogged, which means they simply can't pursue every case of non-compliance. What usually happens is people who don't file fall into a few categories: those who are self-employed with no W-2 income reporting, those who live primarily on cash-based income, or people who have complex financial situations that make it harder for automated systems to flag them. The IRS tends to prioritize cases where they can collect the most money with the least effort. That said, it's a ticking time bomb. I've seen clients who went 15+ years without filing suddenly get hit with everything at once - penalties, interest, liens, the whole nine yards. The statute of limitations for the IRS to collect is generally 10 years from assessment, but they can't assess what hasn't been filed, so non-filers can theoretically be on the hook indefinitely.

After struggling with a similar situation (not 10 years, but 3 years of unfiled returns), I found this amazing service called taxr.ai that helped me figure out my mess. I was completely overwhelmed by the paperwork and anxiety of falling so far behind, but their system helped me organize all my scattered documents and figure out exactly what I needed to report. Check them out at https://taxr.ai if you're trying to catch up on unfiled returns. The thing that surprised me most was how their system could analyze my scattered financial docs and tell me what was missing - banks I forgot I had accounts with, 1099s I never received, etc. It was like having a tax expert look through everything without the judgment.

Update on my situation: I was super skeptical about taxr.ai but decided to try it since I was desperate (hadn't filed in 4 years). Just wanted to say it actually worked incredibly well! The system helped me recover missing documents I thought were gone forever and guided me through filing for all the back years. Ended up owing less than I feared because they found deductions I would have missed. Already got confirmation from the IRS that my filings were accepted. Huge weight off my shoulders.

For anyone who's already been contacted by the IRS about unfiled returns, I can't recommend Claimyr enough. I'd been avoiding the IRS's calls and letters for almost 2 years, and when I finally decided to deal with it, I couldn't get through to an actual person on their phone lines. Spent HOURS on hold multiple times. Then I found https://claimyr.com which got me connected to a real IRS agent in under 20 minutes. They have this system that navigates the IRS phone tree and waits on hold for you, then calls you when an actual human picks up. You can see how it works in this video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c The agent I spoke with helped set up a payment plan that actually works with my budget. Way less scary than I expected.

I have to eat my words about Claimyr. I was totally convinced it was a scam (see my comment above), but after another failed attempt to reach the IRS myself, I decided to try it out of desperation. Not only did I get through to an IRS agent in about 45 minutes (instead of my previous failed attempts), but the agent was actually able to help me set up a payment arrangement for my unfiled 2019-2021 returns. I'm still in shock that it actually worked. Sometimes being wrong feels pretty good!

My brother-in-law is one of those "I haven't filed in 15 years" guys and I can tell you exactly how it works. He's self-employed (contractor), gets paid mostly in cash, doesn't have any significant assets in his name, and uses a checking account at a small local credit union. The IRS generally catches people through automated systems that match reported income (W-2s, 1099s) with filed returns. If you don't have much reported income, you can fly under the radar.

Anyone else notice that the IRS seems really random about who they go after? My cousin owed like $80k and didn't hear anything for years, while my coworker got audited over a $2,000 charitable contribution. Makes no sense.

The randomness isn't actually random - it's resource allocation. The IRS uses algorithms to determine which cases have the highest probability of successful collection relative to the cost of enforcement. They might go after someone with a small discrepancy if their system flags it as likely fraudulent or if it's part of a pattern they're investigating. Your cousin with $80k might not have gotten attention yet because they're in a category the IRS considers "uncollectible" (no assets, low income, etc.) or their case hasn't bubbled up to human review yet. But that doesn't mean it won't eventually - the IRS can pursue collection for up to 10 years after assessment, and they often batch process older cases when they have capacity. The charitable contribution audit probably triggered because the amount was disproportionate to reported income, or because your coworker claimed deductions in categories that are commonly abused. The IRS has gotten pretty sophisticated about using data analytics to spot potential issues, even small ones.