I think "do first, ask for forgiveness later" may apply generally to any institution/community where the authority are people who wants the institution to funct

I think "do first, ask for forgiveness later" may apply generally to any institution/community where the authority are people who wants the institution to function in the spirit it was setup rather than based solely on the rules that were implemented to govern it. If the IRS was run in that spirit, then such abnormal cases can be dealt with by 'taxing' the person for IRS wasting resources to deal with it but not the rather astronomical figure of tens of thousands of dollars.