Everything about what they did was not well thought out. The way to do this scam with far less risk is with a stolen identity. They had the fraudulent refunds d

Everything about what they did was not well thought out. The way to do this scam with far less risk is with a stolen identity. They had the fraudulent refunds deposed into their own personal accounts and even tried to take the money and run after they knew for a fact the IRS had already caught them. That said on $100mil of claims, the IRS only paid out 2.4% of that. At that rate, a $1mil claim nets you only $24K. I don't think I would fuck with the IRS for any amount of money (easier ways to steal I think) but for the risk a $2.4mil payout sounds a lot more plausible of a motivation than $24K does.