What is tax evasion? Can I go to prison for cheating on my taxes for 30 years? I used to underfile by hundreds of thousands of dollars and have...

This is called Tax Evasion. Tax evasion is illegally avoiding paying taxes, failing to report, or reporting inaccurately. The most common one is failing to report cash income. The government imposes strict and serious penalties for tax evasion.

This is the section that you need to pay close attention to: Failing to file a tax return: This is a misdemeanor and can result in a maximum prison sentence of one year and/or fines totaling up to $25,000 for each year for which no return was filed.

After researching this is what I have come up with: Federal statutes carry a five-year prison term for each count of tax evasion. The penalty for false statement counts was three years each.