Why does select SCOPE_IDENTITY() return a decimal instead of an integer?

Question

So I have a table with an identity column as the primary key, so it is an integer. So, why does SCOPE_IDENTITY() always return a decimal value instead of an int

Answer 1

Scope identity return value is decimal(38,0)

CAST it, use the OUTPUT clause, or assign to an output parameter rather than SELECT SCOPE_IDENTITY() to the client