Taxpayers filed 14% fewer returns in the first week of this year’s tax filing season, which is a poor start. If this pattern persists until the April 15 tax filing deadline, which is when most Americans file their taxes, it may indicate that more taxpayers are choosing not to file this year for a variety of reasons, such as political protest or simply waiting to see if the IRS will survive the upcoming months.
According to the IRS, the majority of people—roughly 85%—pay taxes every year. The amount of money that is not paid year and the reasons for it have not been consistently reported by the government; however, a recent analysis estimated the 2021 “tax gap” to be $688 billion.
On the other hand, income taxes accounted for over half of the nearly $5 trillion in revenue the United States received in fiscal year 2024. Even if there’s a significant amount that could go, it still makes up a small portion of the total, and retrieving it wouldn’t significantly reduce the $2 trillion federal budget deficit.
The IRS, however, dislikes nonpayments. The U.S. tax system normally catches up to people, although it could take some time, especially given understaffing. The back taxes, along with any penalties, fees, and interest, must then be paid by the person who skipped payments.
How much might that cost a person? It would be a lot, according to an accountant MarketWatch spoke with. Using round numbers, your tax liability, assuming no extra problems, such as a child tax credit, would be around $13,620 if you had $100,000 in adjusted gross income for 2025 and claimed the standard deduction. In addition to the $571 underpayment penalty, you would also be subject to a failure-to-pay penalty of up to $3,405, which is equivalent to 0.5% of the unpaid taxes, or 25% of the tax owed, if you failed to file. You would then be responsible for paying the interest, which is imposed at a rate of 7% as of the first quarter of 2025.
That only lasts for a year. You’d be looking at a large cost if you were to multiply it by two, or four if you were thinking about opposing a presidential government. The outcomes may vary based on your intention.
Tax evaders, tax protestors or resisters, and those who make inadvertent mistakes are the three groups into which tax-nonpayers fall, according to tax professor Michele Frank of Miami University’s Farmer School of Business. “Tax evaders, protesters and resisters face much harsher consequences,” she stated. “Failure to file and failure to pay penalties for these categories can be up to three times higher than those for sincere errors. They may also be subject to severe criminal and civil penalties, as well as a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
If you simply make a mistake
Taxes are difficult, and if you do them incorrectly, you can get some relief. According to Frank, if a taxpayer behaved in good faith and/or can provide a valid reason for their inability to pay taxes, the IRS may be inclined to waive or decrease these penalties. Alternatively, the agency could arrange a payment schedule with you.
Josh Kornbluth, a monologist, did just that when he failed to pay his taxes for seven years. At first, there appeared to be no repercussions. He wasn’t paying attention because he was freelancing. In the end, it became quite costly and messy, but he survived. In fact, he created a documentary titled “Love & Taxes,” which details how he accrued $50,000 in debt to the US government before negotiating a repayment plan.
If you intentionally stop making payments
Neither for religious nor political reasons does the IRS offer a “conscientious objector” exemption. Since the government expects you to pay taxes on all of your income as you receive it, you would technically be in violation of the pay-as-you-go guidelines if you stopped paying during the year and made up the difference when you filed your tax return.
For this reason, businesses deduct Social Security and Medicare taxes from your paychecks, along with withholding taxes, which are considered future contributions to these programs. In fact, it can be quite challenging to discontinue withholding the income-tax component as a protest for a full-time employee paid through W-2 earnings. To avoid being notified of automated system audits, you would need to complete a new W-4 form on your company’s payroll portal, label yourself exempt, and hope to avoid detection.
Freelance income is subject to the same pay-as-you-go guidelines, although it is technically simpler to omit upfront payments. Any platform that pays an individual at least $600 in a year, however, submits a 1099 filing to the government, which matches the data with the individual’s return. You may receive an underpayment bill from the IRS if the amount you file does not match.
“If you do not voluntarily file a tax return, but the IRS receives a W-2 or 1099 that shows you received taxable payments, it may file a substitute return for you,” stated Frank. “You are generally better off voluntarily filing, rather than having the IRS prepare a substitute return for you, because an IRS-prepared return will not include any of your additional exemptions or expenses.”
It would also be a drop in the bucket to not pay taxes. The analysis shows that an individual earning $100,000 in adjusted gross income would be temporarily owing the government almost $13,000. The impact of the Boston Tea Party would require a large number of individuals. Additionally, since tax returns for 2025 are not due until April 2026, it would take an additional year and a half before it would become noticeable.
“It would only hurt the person and it would serve no purpose,” stated Wes Battle, a Maryland-based certified financial planner. “Nobody in the government is going to cry about it.”
