1. It surely costs way more in employee expenses to monitor, correct, and collect such small fines. Plenty of times they'll just let a $200 fine go because it's

1. It surely costs way more in employee expenses to monitor, correct, and collect such small fines. Plenty of times they'll just let a $200 fine go because it's not worth the effort to collect. 2. Taxes are a means to an end, as is the government. There's no benefit to fining people for clerical mistakes besides encouraging them to not make them. There's no value created by fines. There's no shareholder greedily pocketing the revenue. If they can avoid mistakes for people, that benefits government employees by having to waste less time on stupid stuff, the taxpayers by not having to waste time on stupid stuff and avoiding fines, and the people at large by not having to waste public money on paying people to fix stupid stuff on people's returns.