I've heard of this consequence of that act a few other times and never heard "but you can get around it if ..." So it's just a guess, but not one that's totally

I've heard of this consequence of that act a few other times and never heard "but you can get around it if ..." So it's just a guess, but not one that's totally unsubstantiated. And plenty of people break tax laws. I read (on HN, I think) that something like 1/3 of people who work as private contractors under-report their income (which is part of why the IRS is cracking down on "contractors" that really are more like employees). Lots of people work under the table. Until the IRS started asking for the SSNs of people's dependents, lots of people had fictional dependents. (Millions fewer dependents were claimed the first year it was required than the previous year.) The IRS can only audit a tiny percentage of filings. And if it were a 100% unpaid internship where they didn't even pay for a plane ticket or anything, there might be no trace of it anywhere that an audit would see.