Someone asked me about whether they should fudge their taxes to get $6,000 of the Earned Income Credit.
Part of the reason they thought it was a good risk to take was because after some googling, they found that only 0.4% of the population gets audited.
What I explained was that something like 99.6% of the population fills out their taxes correctly, which means no review of their taxes is necessary. For example, my return is more complicated than the average return, especially the years I had state returns for NY, NC and LA.
I also let them know the following, which I'm very well-versed in: (1) Under-reported income is picked up automatically, and the examination of your taxes will be started not by an eagle-eyed IRS employee, but by a computer (the robots are here), (2) The EIC is the biggest program the IRS examines because of how frequently people who claim it should not, and (3) This might hold up your actual refund for months or more, but even if you got the big refund because it initially slipped through, the IRS has 7 years to catch up to you. It's not if, but when, and when they do, you'll likely have a 20% penalty attached, as well as interest.