if you fuck it up, you go to jail
No, no you don’t. This is an actual child’s understanding of how it works.
If you fuck up they often don’t even notice unless it’s substantial, otherwise they just send you a notice. You have to be willfully refusing to pay taxes for a while, repeatedly, before you’re in trouble (tax evasion) or commiting actual tax fraud.
Why would the IRS send you to jail for making mistakes on your taxes? Where taxes are now paying for your incarceration, and you can’t work to make the income to pay taxes.
You’re talking about laws. They’re talking about the IRS.
The IRS doesn’t make the laws. They’re an agency like any other, and a very important one.