That's correct, albeit more nuanced than I was getting. My point is that they'll "shrug", accept your return, and issue you a refund. Yes, they may come back l

That's correct, albeit more nuanced than I was getting. My point is that they'll "shrug", accept your return, and issue you a refund. Yes, they may come back later and say, "Actually..." When I say, "you're long gone", I'm referring specifically to taxpayer identification fraud, where you'd file a (fraudulent) return on behalf of someone else (often a dead person or someone from Puerto Rico[1]), receive their refund in the form of a debit card, and "disappear". In any case, it's way easier to avoid paying someone in the first place than try and claw it back later. [1] https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc901 https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc901