How will IRS tell a rebate only return from a frivolous one?

[Quixote]

Social security and VA pension recipients who cannot be claimed as a dependent on someone else's return are eligible for the "rebates", but only if they file a 2007 return. Large numbers of them have not had a filing requirement in decades. The returns filed by SS recipients, if filed correctly, will be easily identified by an entry on line 20a. Returns filed by VA pension recipients, if filed correctly, will have no entry (or 0) on every income line. (It isn't at all clear to me why the government wants thousands of returns containing no useful income.) Several SS filers will also enter nothing or 0 on all lines, ignoring line 20a and 20b.

My gut tells me that some of the people filing simply to get the rebate will try to claim the rebate on the return. Some will try to shoehorn it on to the line for specific credits. Others will simply enter it on the total payment line. So the IRS will receive hundreds (thousands?) of returns showing no income, but claiming an apparently erroneous refundable credit. How will the line level GS-5's distinquish those returns from a Schiffite zero return? Again, my gut tells me they won't always do so. The frivolous return coordinator may have his hands full by April.

[Quixote]

Well, I was almost prophetic. The IRS has popped an old lady with a $5,000 frivolous return penalty for her economic stimulus payment (ESP) return. She put her social security benefits on the line for withheld income tax and excess social security tax, a mistake even I had not envisioned. IRS refunded the full amount to her, doubling her income for the year. She sent the check back immediately* and IRS corrected the account. She received her $300 ESP two months later. A few weeks after that, the IRS sent her a Letter 3176 offering her "an opportunity to correct [her] submission", which she ignored because she had already corrected her submission several months before. In February, IRS assessed the penalty. The case is currently with the Taxpayer Advocate Service.



* As a practical matter, given the woman's financial situation, immediate voluntary repayment of the refund was the only way IRS was ever going to get that money back.