It can happen to the best of us. You thought you copied the right figure onto your tax form, but you mixed up a couple of digits. Or maybe you forgot about that interest payment from the bank whose statements you rarely check. It’s easy enough to make a mistake when filing your federal taxes, and if it’s a genuine mistake on your part, then the IRS may not come down on you too hard.
But there’s a difference between slipping up on your taxes and deliberately trying to defraud the tax man, and it’s the latter that could get you into major trouble if you get caught.