Despite the fact that most people that work for legitimate employers in legitimate jobs, have at least a portion of their taxes taken out during each pay period, and even though these very same employees will receive a W-2 at the end of their fiscal year, which is the fundamental basis of the determination of their tax liability or not, there are an inordinate amount of Americans that never get around to filing their taxes or are late in doing so. According to investopedia.com we read: "In 2009, a spokesperson for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service estimated that 8.2 million Americans owed over $83 billion in back taxes." While there are myriad reasons for this sad sight of affairs, one very basic reason for non-filing or the late filing of taxes is that there are a lot of people in America that are simply overwhelmed by the idea or concept of filing taxes in the first place and simply have no clue as to how to successfully do so.
That does lead to the general complaint that schools, in general, should probably spend more time with students, simply dealing with practical matters that people will have to tackle at some point in their life, so that things that seem mysterious to them today, will not be something that they will fear or become intimidated by. Another point to be made, is that rather than having all these tax stores that are setup to profit upon man's ignorance, there should be, especially in lower socio-economic areas of cities, at least a few storefronts at no cost to the taxpayer, that are specifically setup to help those that need assistance in doing their taxes, because often times getting off to a good start is the key to creating success now and into the future.
There are two basic types of people that don't file their taxes, the first type is the aforementioned people that are either intimidated or ignorant of how to file their taxes, and seemed overwhelmed by the entire process of such. The other type of people, are those that have either through their own incompetency, their lack of cash, their poor business practices, non-interest in paying back child support, or through outright fraud, aren't going to file their taxes because they know that they have place themselves into a position in which they have committed a basic tax infringement and they don't want to own up to it.
The thing is once you get yourself into the position in which you haven't paid your taxes as estimated by the IRS, nor have made contact with the IRS, after they have tried to make contact with you, the IRS will take steps to recover their monies owed by establishing garnishments and liens, along with the invariable penalties for failure to file, while, in reality, in most cases, the IRS is quite willing to make some sort of accommodation with you in order to work things out. Additionally, once the IRS determines that you owe the money to the government, any refunds of overpayment of taxes in future years that you have coming to you, will be seized by the government, including any penalties and interest that they have added to the principle amount.
Unfortunately, in today's world, your social security number is essentially your national ID card, and consequently in order to get legitimate work, you will have to divulge this information, which allows the government often to get a basic idea of your tax obligation on any given year. The failure to file taxes isn't going to help you, and it could most certainly hurt you, so even though you might forget or forsake this obligation, the government won't, and that is a certainty.