The thing is, the way the tax system is structured, it's much better if you don't file and stay under the radar. The IRS knows that but they probably didn't pur

The thing is, the way the tax system is structured, it's much better if you don't file and stay under the radar. The IRS knows that but they probably didn't pursue it due to it being a marginal phenomena and lack of abilities. Now that they need money (and maybe the size of these cheats is higher?) they are going after them. It is also possible that they are over-estimating the amounts owned and once they get to auditing they find out that these "millions of dollars" are just "$1Ks of dollars" and the audit doesn't turn that profitable after all.