Just throwing in my two cents here:
First off, I do not have any knowledge as to the mysterious workings of the Internal Revenue Service. I do know that sometimes they can be inefficient, stupid, and ignorant of the laws that they are charged with enforcing. I also know that they sometimes really do the right thing, not only for the evil gubmint but also for us taxpayers.
I do know for fact that governmental agencies frequently share information between and among themselves.
We know that we furnish the VIN of the car when we complete and submit form 8936. We know that our state of registration has this same information. We know that Tesla is required to submit quarterly reports to the Internal Revenue Service indicating the quantity of vehicles sold in the previous calendar quarter to count against the 200,000 threshold. We do not know what else is submitted with this raw data, like VIN or buyer.
It is not too much of a stretch of the imagination to have the various states submitting an electronic file with the manufacturer, VIN and purchaser's name and address. I am sure that you programming dudes would know how much of a programming challenge it would be to merge the state information with reported income tax information for that one form.
Then, it is just a matter of matching claims to owners at the end of the calendar year, and for the following year as well.
The statute for ordinary tax adjustments is three years from April 15, or the date of filing, whichever is later.
The statute for a material understatement of income (25%) is six years, and can be extended under certain circumstances.
There is no statute for civil fraud (criminal fraud does have a statute), so the IRS can go back as far as they want to. And civil fraud has a much lower threshold of proof than does criminal fraud.
Penalties for negligence, willful understatement of tax can easily top 50% of the tax assessment. Interest accrues (currently 4%) from the due date of the return.
I guess what I am saying is that to save $7,500 in tax could easily wind up costing a taxpayer much much more when all is said and done. And, it just ain't worth it to try to screw anyone--even the evil federal gubmit--out of such a (comparatively) paltry sum.
I learned a long time ago, that if one really wished to appropriate assets that are not rightfully theirs, take enough to last you the rest of your life. For me, seventy-five hundred dollars needs to have five more zeroes as significant figures.