In the days leading up to Christmas, the Internal Revenue Service revealed that it would be giving something of a “present” to roughly 4.6 million Americans who owe back taxes for the tax years 2020 and 2021, as an incentive for those taxpayers to pay up their past-due amounts.

That “gift” involves waiving nearly $1 billion in late-payment penalties. By law, interest tied to that overdue money cannot be forgiven by the IRS.

We suspect many taxpayers — those who pay their taxes on time — will disagree with handing out such a break to tax scofflaws. We also must note deeply troubling statistics tied to overdue federal taxes. Here is what the Dec. 20 edition of the Wall Street Journal reported:

“As of year-end 2022, 18.6 million individual taxpayers owed the IRS $316 billion in overdue taxes, up from 16.8 million owing $308 billion in September 2019.”

According to the Journal’s report, one reason for the increase is that many Americans who were accustomed to receiving a tax refund found that they now had a balance due.

Compounding that situation was that, during the pandemic, the IRS stopped sending out many collection letters.

With interest and penalties growing, many taxpayers likely were in the dark about how much they owed. According to the Journal, the penalty relief in question applies to taxpayers who owe under $100,000 in taxes for 2020 or 2021 and who received an initial balance-due notice on or before Dec. 7, 2023.

Room remains for second-guessing the IRS, even as many of those who benefit from it are smiling about their luck.