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IRS Can Now Seize Your Tax Refund To Pay a Relative's Debt
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Just in time for the April 15 IRS filing deadline comes news from the Washington Post that hundreds of thousands of taxpayers expecting refunds are instead getting letters informing them of tax debts they never knew about: often a debt incurred by their parents. The government is confiscating their checks, sometimes over debts 20—30 years old. For example, when Mary Grice was 4 (in 1960), her father died ... 'Until the kids turned 18, her mother received survivor benefits from Social Security ... Now, Social Security claims it overpaid someone in the Grice family in 1977. ... Four years after Sadie Grice died, the government is coming after her daughter. ... "It was a shock," says Grice, 58. "What incenses me is the way they went about this. They gave me no notice, they can't prove that I received any overpayment, and they use intimidation tactics, threatening to report this to the credit bureaus."'
The Treasury Department has intercepted ... $75 million from debts delinquent for more than 10 years according to the department's debt management service. 'The aggressive effort to collect old debts started three years ago — the result of a single sentence tucked into the farm bill lifting the 10-year statute of limitations on old debts to Uncle Sam.'"
Since the kids were not over 18 - could the benefit received by the mother not be considered a contract between the govt and the mother and therefore since the kids were too young to be signatories how could they be held accountable?
I'm an orphan raised in an adoption center!
We had a $186.00 deducted from our tax refund this year for social security. Having never collected social security we called the SSA and was informed that the social securities benefits my wife received as a teen following the death of her father were overpaid as she had a part-time job at a pharmacy and they had deducted the amount. Mind you my wife is 53 years old now.
Enjoy my $11 refund government.
Do you have any teeth left at all after your knee impacted your chin?
Just what good is a Statute of Limitations when it can be raised after the fact?
Can they lift the Statute on 40 year old Federal crimes and go out and arrest people?
And this is beside the fact that you are not your parents. Once you are an adult you are an individual.
Survivor benefits are paid to the children, not the surviving parent. The parent only get the money as the custodian of the children, and is supposed to use it for the benefit of the child. The parent doesn't report the benefits on his or her tax return. If the child makes enough money during the year to file a tax return, the child does. So the IRS is going after the party to which the money was given. But of course, it really makes no sense...the child did not actually receive the money. The child has no records of receiving the money, or of any overpayment and can't contest it. It's unlikely even the parent has the records. And it is implied that the IRS can try to collect money from whomever they can get it from, not just the child of record.
The IRS has already stopped collecting these old debts, but let's not let that get in the way of a good political rant..
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ro...
They cancelled this policy almost immediately after it was brought to light.
"The Treasury Department has intercepted ... $75 million from debts delinquent for more than 10 years"
Let's put this into perspective:
$ 75,000,000 collected
$1,386,100,000,000 last year's revenue from individual income tax
vote GOP and your student loans will come out of your SS, SSDI, welfare and more. Jail / prison maybe the only way out. At least then you get food, room and board , and a doctor payed for by the state then.
actually, the real mafia probably wouldn't sink that low.
I don't get it?
Wow, I had just assumed that it was the recent farm bill when I read the story elsewhere. But what can you expect from the media these days?
Yeessssss. Yeeesssss... let the childish, passive-aggressive comments flow through you!
Who has a deep and abiding desire to beat the shit out of every Congressman who votes for a bill without fully understanding it?
I don't agree with this tactic, but when congress keeps cutting taxes without reducing spending by a matching amount they leave the IRS with few choices but to work harder to pursue outstanding debts.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
So the people who wrote the bill have absolutely no responsibility for it? Um .. ok then
I always make sure I never have a refund and that I "owe" taxes because the thieves that run the federal government simply cannot be trusted. All it takes is some pencil-pushing bureaucrat to decide that you were "overpaid" and they can steal your refund without so much as a trial, a hearing, or a chance to defend yourself.
Do you have any teeth left at all after your knee impacted your chin?
I don't get it?
He had a knee-jerk reaction. GP implies it was so severe that his knee made it all the way to his chin and knocked out some teeth.
I haven't filed a tax return in forever and a day. Then again, I also don't earn much and I don't ask the government for a single shred of help.
First, they went after Latvia. But no-one said anything, because most of them weren't Latvian. And only a few even "knew" it was south of Mexico, somewhere. Then they went after Greece ...
SUCK SHIT AMERICANS... why the fuck do you still live in that shithole...
You go ahead and keep believing the false choice you are given between Democrat and Republican. Hint: There is no real choice you dolt, and it should only take about 15 minutes of study and contemplation to get that correct conclusion.
Conservatives would eliminate government subsidized student loans. So, whether we agree or disagree with that policy, it would guarantee that the situation you mention would never come to pass.
I just checked Wikipedia, according to which Bush vetoed the linked "Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008" on May 21, 2008, and had the veto overridden the same day, by a Congress run by Nancy Pelosi and whoever was Senate leader then. (checking... oh, Harry Reid). While I am anxious to find out which Republicans did vote for that bill, it looks like Bush didn't.
If that's the wrong bill I'd like to know about it, since they seem to be linking to it in every story I see on this issue.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
A large refund is a sign of poor tax planning. You are getting your own money back without interest. In light of this story, you may not even get your own money back if the feds take it.
Arrange your source deductions and installment payments so that you don't get a refund.
It would be better to owe $2K each year than to expect refunds.
First: that the Department of Social Security cannot prove the debt. (That, in itself, should be an automatic "repay what you took, and pay their legal fees.)
Second: that people have been destroying their records after three years, on the advice of the IRS. (This should mean that, given that the government has given them that advice, all government debts older than three years should be declared null and void.)
Third: that they're going after relatives of people long dead. (Who here, with deceased ancestors, has all of the records of that ancestor in their possession and knows where to look for social security - or, hell, any other government-related matter - records? Anyone?)
Due process has not been done, and has not been seen to be done. Unless and until the government can demonstrate due process, they should be held accountable for theft (which is what this is: I'm all in favour of paying taxes; that's the price of living in a civilised society. But claiming a debt when one is not demonstrably due, that's theft.)
Why do you let your politicians get away with such bullshit?
Well fuck you to. No one should be able to be held accountable for crimes that precede their birth.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Just because the time limit has been raised, that doesn't incur a liability for the debt on the part of anyone who isn't already liable for it. And generally children aren't liable for their parent's debts unless their signature's on the contract. The parent's estate might be liable, but good luck collecting from that once the estate's finalized and closed out. I suspect this'll be what any competent attorney will raise as an issue if the victims get one: "Regardless of anything else, this is not my client's debt and the debt being collectible doesn't on it's own make my client liable for it.".
Yeah, those darned conspiracy theorists, all crazy and stuff - complaining about a policy that was stupid and evil.
But now that it hit the news and EVERYONE said it was stupid and evil, the government has stopped doing the stupid, evil thing.
So those people are now wrong and crazy.
Until the government starts doing it again.
What will it take this time?
As a taxpayer, I don't want people getting free money for the government at my expense. They need to pay it up in today's dollars - with interest. If your parent or grandparent abused the system, I'm sorry but it's time for you to pay up.
This is about taking money "back" when the government made an accounting error (not people that cheated or lied mind you) but not taking it back from the people they gave it to but rather taking it out of another persons return. If the government accidentally gave me $500 thirty years ago and I died after five years ago long after I spent it, would you be OK with them deducting $500 (plus interest and adjusted for inflation) from your return, simply because you happen to be a relative?
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
You go ahead and keep believing the false choice you are given between Democrat and Republican. Hint: There is no real choice you dolt, and it should only take about 15 minutes of study and contemplation to get that correct conclusion.
There won't be much of a choice until the US electoral system moves from a Winner-Takes-All system to a Proportional Representation system -- you know, like a majority of the rest of the functional, democratic, voting world.
Good luck getting those in power with the ability to change the system to do so, however...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison
Refugees get held accountable. Get born to the wrong parents and you get deported with them instead of citizenship in the place where you were born :(
Do people pay taxes in advance?
On the other hand the measure shows desperation,
it might be that the treasure is doing worst than most realize.
Who controlled the House when this bill passed into law? Rep. Nancy Pelosi - at best you could call this one of the last examples of the two parties working together...
Pretty much. Even forbids it in it's definition of treason.
This isn't a crime though. It's mistakes that were made in calculation of benefits for dependent children, The IRS is trying to collect it from the people whom the benefits were intended.
The problem is lack of due process. Their procedures are very shoddy.
The democrats wrote the bill yet they're not responsible? How about getting off your high horse and realizing that both parties are to blame?
vote GOP and your student loans will come out of your SS, SSDI, welfare and more. Jail / prison maybe the only way out. At least then you get food, room and board , and a doctor payed for by the state then.
So. you advocate the non-payment of self inflicted student loans?? ...oh yeah, it's a progressive thing ... right...??
What makes you believe you are entitled to something that is not yours...?
If your parent or grandparent abused the system, I'm sorry but it's time for you to pay up.
I've never been a big fan of the "sins of the fathers" approach to punishment.
I have enough to do dealing with things I'm actually personally responsible for...I don't need to catch flak for shit I ain't done.
How about getting rid of the loans so that market forces force the colleges to drop their tuition rates? It should not cost $100,000 to go to college, but with the government 'guaranteeing' the loans, the schools just keep upping the rates every year.
You misunderstand this move. This isn't about the money. A drop in the bucket, utter symbolism.
This is just one small story in many decades of more and more changes to the lender-debtor relationship. In economics I learned that one of the most important reasons for US capitalism's success was that, unlike in other parts of the world until that time where debtor prison and other nasty things awaited anyone who didn't, most often couldn't pay their debts in the US you'd be freed from your debt and then could start over and try again. The invention of the corporation (16th century) was when that movement started that debts are not eternal and that one should be able to try again. It still is true for corporations, but for individuals the noose has been tightening more and more not just in the US. There have been (economic) articles about a growing disparity between economic teaching and reality in the area of lendor-debtor relationship and power for a long time. The power has slowly shifted ever more towards the lender. This story is just one tiny brick in a big wall that was started being built decades ago.
Just another reason hate on the US, what is wrong with you people... the debts of the parents shouldn't be the debt of the kids. The kids aren't the ones who got that money to begin with. You're basically charging people just for being associated with idiots.
Same problem over a couple of dollars; turns out you can donate money to wildlife funds so I did that after they sent me the paperwork for it...I was then able to write that off the next year.... /I really with they would clear up tax law; it really needs it, 30 years of adding to it since the last overhaul
at best you could call this one of the last examples of the two parties working together...
What two parties?
Here in the US, we have one ultra-conservative party owned by corporations, with two wings who are badmouthing each other like two football teams. It's posturing and arguing over trifles - the closer they get, the more they posture and badmouth each other, to make the masses believe there is a real difference.
And the astonishing thing is that the American public buys it, wholesale, apart from some even scarier people on the extreme right wing.
The IRS loses billions every year to fraudulent returns. All you have to do is get a pre-paid debit card, find someone's social security number and name, and have the IRS deposit the money to the pre-paid card. Since it's anonymous, catching them is hard.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
This is what Republicans want for all of us. If we speak-up in anger at the horrible things they do, they will destroy us with their IRS. While the Democrats wrote the bill, they are not responsible for this horror. It was Bush that signed it.
You do realize that Obama, a Democrat, has been in charge of the IRS for the last five years? They are part of the executive branch. Plus for the last two years the Commissioner of the IRS have been Obama appointees.
Exactly -- also, this is why statutes of limitations exist; eventually its the states' fault for not noticing.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Stop exploding liberal fantasies with your ridiculous facts.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Because you're a rare case, and you apparently don't have a family.
You could've been wounded (or rendered ill by certain products or derivatives, depending where you work) and needed it.
A family member could need hospitalization for a day or two, at which point you could suddenly discover a five digit bill in your mailbox a few months later; they're for-profit institutions after all, and they get to put whatever numbers they damn well please on the bill (charging for nonexistant medicines, procedures or even just gross overcharging if you're lucky are well documented and common events in our medical system) with little to no way of contesting the contents. Insurance? You'd be surprised how loophole-ridden your policies tend to be.
Anti-vaccination idiots could have allowed new mutant strains of various diseases to infect you or your loved ones.
You could be living near those nice chemical spills and incidents we keep having lately.
Single-Payer healthcare systems allow the government to get a decent deal for healthcare for everyone. Like buying at Costco/Sam's Club: the 'purchase' of unified medicare is in such bulk that the right people will make EVERYBODY's bill that much smaller.
And this even means lower taxes in the end, because all those people that can't pay end up costing the states a lot of dough, whether from legal proceedings or just plain "so we charged the government because we're guaranteed our cash" from companies!
Yes, you heard me. National Healthcare can *lower* taxes.
In 10 years, if you live that long, you will be 40 and likely going through a stage of mental illness. 10 years after that 50, that's when the real expenses start. Heart attacks, gout, arthritis, cancer. Like any insurance policy you pay for a few decades when you are younger so that you can claim for a few decades when you are older.
They cancelled this policy almost immediately after it was brought to light.
Irrelevant. The fact that this started at all is yet more evidence that the "kinder gentler" IRS that 1990 era reforms were supposed to bring about failed and/or didn't stick. The IRS demonstrates, decade after decade, that it is a rogue agency.
Seriously folks - its time for a flat tax. Figure out what percentages are necessary for individuals and corporations to get the desired revenue and go with those and have no deductions at all.
Tax deductions are just the mechanism for political corruption.
With a simple flat tax the IRS can be downsized to a very very small fraction of what it is today. Its enforcement activities negligible. They take the % out of your paycheck, done, fully paid, no extra payments, no refunds, no system to game.
Posting anonymously to avoid IRS retaliation. :-)
You don't mean "refugees", you mean "illegal immigrants".
Refugees actually have permission.
cuz you could be hit by a truck tomorrow
It's "legal" (' yea, right" (sarcasm), it ONLY is since you payoff politicians via lobbying or put them in place, in the first place to change the rules and then let those politicians do "revolving door" techology (crooker) even more, then rotating them right back into poitics when necessary, since they're good puppets) - I thought laws were supposed to be even handed. Whatever happened to that?
And the people who paid the government or the people who tried to fight it both got screwed. It should be unconstitutional to make something done in the past illegal and charge people for when they did it when it was legal.
That's like the government passing a law that all previous crimes are wiped out at the start of 2015 (easy way to reduce backlog or something). Now 2015 rolls around and every says "I got away with...". One month later the government extends that law's date to 2016, then presses charges against everyone using what each person said as an admission of their guilt. (If you want to go deeper, the controlling party of the executive branch only presses changes on non-party members [selective enforcement is legal] thus turning a large amount of the other party into non-voting felons).
and the government has UNLIMITED taxpayer resources, power of the courts (if they even bother) to take anything. Under the "old outdated and needs to be redone" Constitution, innocent until proven guilty, the ability to face those accusing you of anything, are being unconstitutionally done away with. And how is this possible? Just watch any "man on the street" interview where people mostly below the age of 45 can't tell you who their representative, vice president, ANY member of the supreme court, how a bill becomes law, the number of amendments called the bill of rights there is and so on and so on. Our (lack of) REAL education in this country, coupled with the sports/celebrity culture that puts that as the #1 topic around the water cooler, and you will see how easy it is to distract the "HEY LOOK! SQUIRREL!!!" ldiots in this country!
like jury duty. they get to vote on whether a bill mixes unrelated topics. if a certain % of them vote this way the bill gets rejected until they stop trying to sneak things into it.
The SSA used a private contractor to make sure all parties were correctly notified about the debt before seizure proceedings were started, which would have allowed incorrect claims to be dropped. Of course, the private contractor screwed that up.
Because you aren't going to commit suicide tomorrow. Someone might stab you tomorrow or hit you with a car. How healthy you are now has nothing to do with if you'll need medical help in the future or not. If that's not good enough for you, do you want everyone else at the grocery store to be walking around deathly ill and because they couldn't get insurance? They'll be smelling, foul looking, touching your food or it's packaging before you touch it, coughing over everything, and spreading sickness. You won't stay healthy long. And if you think buying everything online will fix that think again. It's the poorer people who pack and ship things, robots only move things around the warehouses and tell the humans where to go.
When a debt is void, it's done. You can not pass a law after the fact to make that debt valid again, it violates ex post facto in the constitution. Bully tactics are being used to keep victims off balance and to forget that they're in the right.
And still not posting as an AC.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
A weekend in Kabul or Baghdad (yes, we're still there) is costing us north of $75 million... and the government is concerned with this? Not to mention, if the IRS bullying victims fight back in courts, this will become a liability on the budget and not a treasure box.
Let's stop this nonsense, shall we?
As it should be.
and really, we don't want to tax at the Laffer maximum, we want to tax at a rate that maximizes future growth, which should be strictly less than the Laffer maximum right now.
But it's all very context-dependent and hard to capture with statistics. To lead nations, men of judgment are needed.
Instead, we have weasels whose only care is reelection.
FYI: Keep your HSA receipts separately in a safe place.
Last year, I had to dig up all my HSA receipts from three years ago. IRS sent me a letter which said, "Nope. All your supposedly tax deductible HSA distributions need to be added to income. On which you must now pay tax, TYVM." So, I had to dig up all the receipts, make copies, write a cover letter explaining everything, and send it in. Ultimately, I didn't have to pay anything extra, but it was an uncomfortable experience.
I look at it as an attempted shakedown. But politicians need their walkin-around money. Momma gotta get paid. Votes ain't cheap nowadays.
How about we get rid of that talking point? If colleges are charging more to get that easy money, then more for-profit colleges would be created to take advantage of it, forcing tuition rates back down through competition.
I have never, do never, and shall never post as an AC!
Singing "God Bless America" seems pretty stupid anymore.
Says you. Try having the IRS owe you a few grand. Still waiting on that check from several years back. In the IRS' defense, the mailman could have cashed it, since banks rarely do pesky stuff like read anymore. I've also had them unilateraly apply tax credits that I wasn't legally eligible for (thank heaven I can't be held liable for their mistakes... yet). That said, it was a big tax giveaway (making work pay act) in an election year so I can't say I'm too surprised. Their behavior can appear quite baffling unless you have looked deeply at the history of their actions.
Seriously, read a few Inspector General's reports before you defend an organization that you know little about. They regularly violate their own rules; especially the ones about not keeping an "enemies list" of tax protestors and not auditing because of RO's personal vendettas. Practically every administration since (and including) FDR have used them as a political weapon against their opponents. Judges and Jurors who decide against them get singled out for audit. Repeated studies by lawyers have shown the Revenue Code to be so self-contradictory that prosecution is effectively discretionary. As such "following the law" is basically whatever they feel like at the moment. Oh, and there's a special tax court that is exempt from due process if they so choose to subject you to it (usually reserved for aformentioned protestors).
But, you are right in saying it's not about the money. It's mostly about Revenue Officers and their self-aggrandizement. The way to get promoted is to maximize seizures, and that has been the case from the beginning. The money comes naturally with those incentives. The frequent strong-arm tactics they use to achieve said siezures (and the above bending of rules) is why they are considered little different from a private criminal organization running a protection racket. The things the tax money is spent on (international murder, political blackmail, crony arrangements) is also little different in practice, so you can forgive why a person could mistake the IRS for a mafia organization. Duck rule and all that.
Now I know some 'a youse are thinking -- "but the government does X charitable thing! They're not all bad, they're compartmentalized, blah blah..." Well, the Mafia runs charities too. Both organizations rely on the forebearance of their victims, so they gotta have some way to paint a positive image over the majority of their activities being rotten. And there will always be fools that believe they can join the Mafia to do good -- however, they will not achieve influence because of the incentive structure (the most rapacious get promoted).
Get over yourselves, people. It's a tough world out there, and a government funded by invoulntary contribution doesn't make any of that go away. Doing Evil that Good May Come (TM) doesn't work out in the long run, so either get used to doing things the hard way, or living in a world dominated by evil. By and large, we've chosen the latter, and we need to accept that rather than getting Stockholm Syndrome about the whole affair. Quit defending people who would kill you with your own money without thinking twice about it.
So, I hope you guys reading TFA realize what this is really about: A bunch of ROs got together and figured out a plausible enough justification to pull in more siezures (and hence more promotions/$$$). They win, the taxpayer loses, the Bureacracies doesn't really care because at the end of the day they have a printing press and whole lots of trigger-pullers. The politicians will continue to try and avoid the subject of the IRS altogether, as that makes people think too much about how the sausage is made rather than the delicious *free* sausage they want to offer up. The courts can be relied upon not to rein in the IRS, as they would prefer not to bite the hand that feeds them. The people (in general) cannot be relied upon because they are widely bamboozled that voting can somehow dislodge such ingrained corruption of incentives. The only person you can rely on is yourself -- If you want this to change, you have to be the change you want to see in others.
Nope. Dem congress passes and Rep pres signs it, Reps at fault.
Dem congress passes with veto-proof majority and Rep pres does not sign, Reps at fault.
Rep congress, Dem pres, Reps at fault.
Dem congress, Dem pres, Reps at fault.
Libs go on and on about how a certain amendment only applies to things invented at the time of its writing then complain about other amendments not automatically applying to modern things. Reps at fault.
See the pattern there.
If the person paying the penalty has not been audited over the issue, how can the debt be arbitrarily assigned?
Sounds like the ACLU can suck up a crapload of public funds over this fiasco.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Seeing as the US govt has spent itself into an event horizon of the current magnitude while trying to prosecute 64 simultaneous, one-sided "wars" against brown folk the world over, all you Americans have just got to tighten your belts a little bit. Priorities like fattening the Republicrat fatcats and sponsoring automated killing machines to further the War on Drugs/Terror/Arabs/Commies/Mexicans are there for a reason. Of course the IRS needs your money more than you do! That's why they're above the law. If you don't like it file suit in a secret court.
$
This obviously isn't ideal, but let's not lose sight of the important things, like Network Neutrality. We need a strong and powerful government to make sure the Internet is not metered by corporate interests. Only the FCC can prevent AT&T and Comcast from abusing their power.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Also then vote republican!
Well newsflash, just because you get some money doesn't mean you can claim ownership of it if it wasn't legally owed to you.
If the government gives you a $1 million USD tomorrow, you don't get to spend it and claim you thought there was nothing wrong with that. Same story however with private transactions: if you accidentally EFT the money for a house to the wrong account number, the owner of that account equally cannot spend it and claim it must be there's because they received it.
Fiscal law is pretty clear: you don't get to exploit the mistakes of others. That you can in practice is a function of when the amounts are small enough not to matter, but if we're very concerned about government efficiency then we should be very concerned about the correction of mistakes like this.
So long as you claim inheritance from your parents or grandparents, or other relatives, then you're also claiming any debts owed against that inheritance.
Don't claim inheritance you're not aware of the debts owing against.
You mean the same IRS that would automatically audit tea party groups even if they weren't suspected of doing anything wrong?
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
But you are not responsible for crimes committed by your parents, we for example do not require children of convicts to finish out their parents sentence if their parents die in prison. That however is exactly the principle that is applied here.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Mrs. Grice is just an elderly black lady on social security. As usual, billionaires are probably safe.
This is not IRS directly. Only the Social Security Administration is doing this, through the Treasury, whose collection arm is the IRS.
It turns out this practice is illegal. I'm surprised it took so long for this to come out - my bet is that most of the people the SSA targeted were quite poor to begin with (hence they were getting SS benefits), and they couldn't really fight back.
This was put into the 2008 Farm Bill, but a relic from the 2005 Farm Bill, which was tabled for three years. The guy who wrote it in was congressman Todd Platts: http://books.google.com/books?...
Going after 6 Mill the first year, and 11 Mill subsequent years. At that rate, they'd sure piss off a lot of people before they paid off the Iraq war...
That law sucks, but it's nothing compared to this crazy IRS law. "FBAR" otherwise known as "FinCEN Form 114". “Cruel and Unusual” Is the Only Way to Describe It
"It's particularly alarming for those who are dual citizens living in other countries and don't have any ties to the US. Let's say for example John is a successful doctor who lives and works in Canada. John was born in the US, but permanently moved to Canada when he was 3 years old. John has never moved or even come back to the US since then. Due to a system of citizenship-based taxation (Americans Are on a Tight Leash) John still is required to file and pay taxes like any US citizen, even though he hasn't been in the US since he was a toddler. Since Canadian taxes are often higher than American taxes, John does not owe any US taxes; however, this does not absolve John from filing an FBAR. John is required to report all of his Canadian financial accounts, including his retirement savings, every year on the FBAR. With the penalties described above, there is a serious possibility that John's entire life savings (and much more) could be wiped and that he could spend years in jail simply from not filing the FBAR form—even if he owed no US taxes in the first place.
There are many thousands or millions of people just like John around the world, the vast majority of whom probably have no idea that they even have any such an obligation to report their day-to-day savings, checking, retirement, or other financial accounts on an FBAR or the extreme penalties that hang over their head like the sword of Damocles for noncompliance."
Shit like this is why I think people more and more are looking to renounce their American citizenship. The USA is the only country in the world that does this!!
This is wrong in every way. You should never ever be held guilty or responsible for a crime or debt incurred by your parents. Circumstances does not matter in the slightest. This kind of law and behavior belongs in the middle ages, with the mafia and the loan sharks.
I'm not a US citizen though so it doesn't effect me but those who are should react strongly and not let it go. It doesn't matter if you are a republican or democrat this time. Force your government to explain how this could happen, who allowed it to happen and what they are going to do to make sure these kind of laws never see the light of day again.
Farm bill, taxes, relatives...
Which part defines that this is news for nerds, stuff that matters?
In 1990 I moved to Asia and, being overseas, did not owe U.S. any tax money. For a few years I filled out the income tax returns. Twenty years ago I attached a letter saying that if I ever think I owe money to the IRS I will contact them; until then the IRS can just photocopy that return every year. I haven't fill out one of those forms since.
This story makes me concerned that the IRS will make a delusion of that they think I owe, and then nail my two eldest children (who are still in Amerika) for the money. If that happens I'll tell them to get the H* out of there. The five Asian children are unreachable.
Now that the government of the USA has decided to remove the statue of limitations as regards taxation, might I remind Barack Obama of the little matter of unpaid taxes to King George III of England. These date back to your protest against the 1773 Tea Act. Can I tell her Magesty's government that payment will soon be made ?
No we don't, but the law regarding the use of stolen property is quite different which is what this is more akin too. If you buy a stolen boat, then it can be returned to the rightful owner less costs for improvements you may have made to it (this is something of a classic law school case study since it turns up a lot).
Same story if you inherited stolen money: you'd be able to have the principle plus nominal interest seized, though probably not returns on more complicated investments (I am not a business lawyer).
Where this rightly gets foggier is the use of money which was to support a person: parents collecting social security which was used to support children, who can't realistically be expected to necessarily hold assets equal to the principle. In that case I'd say the correct option is to collect the money out of the estate of the parents but not in excess of the estate's value at time of death.
Of course other posters have it right as well - this isn't anything to do with the IRS other then that they must follow the letter of the law. It's a congressional issue where they need to provide clarifying direction. But I'd wager that a lot of the issue for some people falls more nebulously into "but I inherited that money and it's mine now!"
At the International Court of Justice:
Case 1057 UK Crown and Native Americans vs USA Senate and Congress
It is alleged that, in 1776, the defendants did, with malice aforethought, conspire to steal land which had been legally allocated as the property of King George III by treaty between the then existing native tribes, and later went on to appropriate the vast majority of said tribes property both by fraud and violence....
what you actually think that congressmen write bills?
how it works is a lobbyist writes the bill, and the congressmen then adds it to be voted without reading it
you don't actually believe the congressmen is your representative, or does any actual vetting do you?
How much tyranny before it's too much? I expect this one to be the last straw and yet some will suck this one up too and start blaming their relatives.
Ever notice it's always anonymous coward who respond to people who oppose obamacare? It has already been widely established there is an army of people hired by government and political agencies to troll the internet forums. Here on slashdot, we are seeing them here and now.
The slashdot demographic is not generally of the opinion expressed by these leftists. It's very out of control.
Laws no longer must be passed by both houses and signed into effect by a president. Nowadays, you just need Obama and a phone and a pen...... or so Mr. Obama keeps telling us.
In this situation, the activity can (and probably WILL) resume as soon as the news media moves on to something else and the public calms down. Look for the journalists who reported on this to get audited...
The bigger problem is that our founders never allowed for an IRS or an income tax. In order to create such evil, lesser men came along later and amended the Constitution (promising that ONLY the super-rich would be subject to it, and setting the rate at about 1%) but to make it legal they had to make it extra-constitutional. It would be REALLY inconventient to allow every citizen to be "presumed innocent", so they made it so that when you face the IRS you are presumed guilty and not only must prove your innocence, BUT your personal papers CAN and WILL be used against you. Because this entire scam is so contrary to both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, they went on to claim that it's OK because your compliance is "voluntary".... which sounds like you don't need your rights because you are not being forced to participate. Of course, like nearly all such laws this too is a complete lie - if you do not turn yourself in (and to their satisfaction) every April 15th they will destroy your life. Don't try it!
This was driven through by Nancy Pelosi (of "we have to pass it so you can see what's in it" fame) and Harry Reid (who now insists we are a nation of LAWS and cannot tolerate law violators when commenting on the ranchers in his state, but has the opposite stance on un-documented democrat voters from Mexico) who are BOTH Democrats and had congress by HUGE margins at the time.............
And then it was signed into law by George W Bush, a Republican.
When it comes to MONEY pouring into the government to let politicians buy votes, the big-government types of BOTH parties will happily gang-up against the little people out in "fly over country" (everywhere that's not NYC, Washington DC, LA, or SF). Did you REALLY think the big party leaders disagreed on things? That's just to allow their respective bases to get all-worked-up to do campaign work, send-in campaign funds, and get to the polls.
Want to know what's damn funny? Send some big corporation sone random amount of cash in a signed letter. Then send another letter asking your money back. They avoid receiving said money. Watch them struggle to return you 2 dollars. Not sure if this works everywhere, but around here this works amazingly.
In Switzerland, for example, they have direct vote for some things. People are the ones that decide directly if some law is passed or not. Goverments does have to executive power, but they have no other option but to follow the decision. I'm not sure about the particulars of how their system works, but it does seem to work real nice. The people actually have a say in things. First requirement for a system like this is very well educated populace.
In many other countries the military is made of regular people, and only small amount of prodfessional soldiers. The government can't just think along the lines "so what, we'll kil lthem all", when the power really comes from the population. I guess showing up to big demonstrations with guns will help goverment to think again in US also.
I'm going to second the request for a source...this sounds like something a redneck says at a dive bar in Charleston
Thank you Dave Raggett
Rep Congress forces government shutdowns **as a regular negotiating tactic**
Rep financiers and Congress hold gun to the face of American people..."pass our farm bill or watch your retirement die"
This is all about Republican obstructionism...that's the **only way** bullshit laws like this get into a rider on a Farm Bill
All Dem's can do is either **not have a farm bill** and a **shutdown government** or they can let the bullshit law pass, then fix it after people complain
That's the breakdown of the real situation, that's why this is the GOP's fault
The GOP is wrong on virtually all the issues b/c they operate for funding from donors, not to be competent legislators.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I can't imagine a more stupid, reductive way to vote.
If you see on TV that Tyson's brand chicken strips are being recalled, you don't go throw out all your bacon and ham cold cuts.
Republicans are the source of **every bad policy** in government now
Republicans are the source of **every reason why we can't change**
Vote them out.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Victory! Social Security Suspends Stale-Debt Collection Program
http://overlawyered.com/2014/0...
IRS workers will be killed over this.
This isn't just randomly going after relatives to pay a debt. The chain is
1) person A (allegedly) receives an overpayment
2) person A dies. The overpayment is a liability of the estate of person A.
3) Persons B and C inherit from person A. If no reserve is left in the estate, the IRS will come after the heirs for recovery.
We are the 198 proof..
...you need to choose your relatives more carefully.
-Styopa
Here is a novel idea.... Don't over withhold your taxes so that come the end of the year you pay, not wait for the government to dole YOUR money back to you. Remember that the refund is not a gift, it is because you paid too much in taxes. I try and work it out so I owe somewhere around 500 bucks. Sure it sucks come April, but at least they aren't holding money I can use, nor can they withhold anything from me.
She will win if she fights it. Anyone that reads it will see that the enforcement is arbitrary which therefore makes it unenforceable.
From here
FAQs are evil.
It is really sad that IRS, in its bumbling bureaucratic wisdom, enforces the law passed by congress critters to the letter and gets all the bad rap. Most of it, richly deserved. But it is also prone to be gamed. All those banksters and hedge fund managers who caused the financial collapse argued, "contract is a contract and my promised bonus must be paid" and got paid for their misdeeds on top of that. They all know what shenanigans they had pulled. They would jump at any opportunity to mess with the statuette of limitations and shorten it. I am sure, when it is all said and done, the time period will be shortened to six or seven years and these billionaire cheaters will get off the hook, again.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
So who added that little sentence to the farm bill?
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
I think that's a pretty major oversimplification - my grandfather murdered a whole bunch of relatively innocent German draftees who thought they were fighting for freedom in WWII, and it worked out pretty well, in the long run, for him. Slaughtering people you've never met because somebody told you it was for a good cause is pretty Evil, you know, but it was the best choice at the time.
I liked the rest of your post, though - especially these bits:
and
If I have to pay my fathers child support debts (that he refused to pay to my mom for care of me) I will seriously go postal...
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
And then we wondered a few years back why that dude flew his airplane right into the IRS building after having an argument with them over taxes.
Seriously, if a lot more people were willing to do that, we might have some change for the better in this country -- except that the usual response is to clamp down even harder on the people.
Same old same old, the banksters get away with stealing billions on a daily basis, Occupy Wall Street did zero to change things, even the outrage after the financial crisis did zero to change things -- wall street is back to the same old tricks with no oversight that caused the last collapse, and we are swiftly headed for another.
Meanwhile our rights are stripped away bit by bit, and we're too sheeple to care. But hey, as long as Kim Kardashian gets in a tabloid this week, we're fine with whatever happens. Americans get what they deserve.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
If it is one sentence that was added. Write one sentence into whatever bill reinstating it. Easy, right politicians? Right? Hello? And also, force every bill to be created/amended in a Wiki system where edit histories are visible, so that we can clearly understood who it was that slipped the one sentence in.
There’s a very simple fix for this and other “seize your refund” enforcement issues like Obamacare fines.
Ensure your withholding amounts are set as low as statutorily permissible. Squirrel away sufficient cash to be able to pay any additional amounts owed. On April 15th, you send the government a check for the difference, having kept any interest earned throughout the year. Much better than having let the government keep your money interest free all year, then maybe not even give it back to you because they decide they don’t have to.
This seems appropriate:
http://botaday.com/node/1755
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
The burden of proof here is on the state, not the estate. If the SSA can't demonstrate that the debt is owed, then they aren't entitled to collect. However, because they have the ability to just seize property, they're doing that because they know perfectly well that without records and individuals to testify about the records, that they don't have any admissible evidence for a court case.
The statute of limitations partially exists so that people don't have to look over their shoulders for the rest of their lives and partially because evidence is harder to verify in many cases the older it gets. It's mostly just things like murder where there is no statute of limitations.
Also, we can be pretty sure that it was a republican that slipped that into the farm bill, they're the ones that are usually opposed to actual protections for people accused of wrong doing. And they're also the ones that are opposed to poor people having anything. You can be sure that most of the people receiving these letters aren't in a financial position to protect themselves.
Doesn't matter. She's 53 which means that the debt that's allegedly owed is from probably 25+ years ago. Whether it was originally owed or not, I can pretty much guarantee that they don't have any admissible evidence.
I doubt that the politician that slipped the line into the farm bill intended for it to be used for debts of that age where there wasn't even any admissible evidence.
Sigh, this is why the government is so bad. Just because a bill is written by one person or another, does not prevent people from attaching riders to it. I'm guessing that at the time somebody was trying to kill the bill, attached this language to it and nobody thought that it would be used in such a blatantly illegal fashion. Which to be fair, is somewhat naive, but largely reasonable.
Also, you act like all Democrats are liberal, that's not the case, there's plenty of Blue Dog Democrats that are basically just people that aren't crazy enough to be GOP, but are still quite conservatives. The GOP ran most of them out of their own party years ago.
Just who is the devil here?
Hate to be playing devil's advocate but a common tactic to shield assets from the taxman has been to transfer them to children.
While this may be a good tool to combat such tactics, it does have unintended consequences in harming those who can least afford it.
It's a well known fact that the IRS doesn't have the resources to resolve debts against the rich armed with a loaded legal and financial warchest. So they go after those who are least able to resist. This isn't a fair law at all.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
No they don't. You've never heard the rearm "Anchor Baby"? if you are born on American soil, you are a citizen, and its a major problem because many women try to enter the US illegally just in time to give birth here, because the government won't deport them if their child is a citizen. Some estimates run as high as 40,000 births per year are attributed to this. Of course, other nations have differing policies, but I'm speaking about the US, which is in following the context of this article.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
I suspect some clever system analyst did a 'join" on survivor benefit recipients and IRS joint (marriage) filings to discover remarried widow[ers] in old records. Otherwise pure SS records would not have detected this situation. And tape-based computers before 1990 were too slow to attempt an inter-agency join like this.
So we have the means to detect financial crimes buried in records decades ago. But it feels unfair to be pursed so many years later, espcially for the actions of a dead relative. There so many financial crimes being commited on current returns like SSDI overpayments, fake EICs, etc., that data-mining effort would be better spent on current crimes.
If you read a little further they have collected over $424 Million since the program started (3 years ago), The Social Security Administration seems to have the bulk of cases (~400,000). That figures out to roughly ~$1,000 per person, not an inconsequential amount for most people. All for a "debt" that cannot be proven by the claimant (treasury) and comes with a "must disprove" provision for decades old "debts" where most of the records which could disprove the debt have been lost with time.
They must be salivating at this prospect....
The problem is, as in some of the cases above, NO ONE KNEW OF THE DEBT. Except maybe the government; and then, only when they looked hard enough.
...that they should stop cutting taxes. The benefit of most tax cuts is weighted toward the non-productive .1%, who have more than they'll ever need to start with.
Google Bundy, you'll find a hundred if not a 1,000 sources on google you lazy net bum.
But you don't think the government noticed
a) all the people who didn't
b) all the people whose shirts bulged from concealed carry weapons.
c) the fact that they knew they were outgunned
Might makes right...in this case the government was in the unusual position of being on the opposite side.
Sort of like how the recession was Obama's fault a few years in to his first term and Clinton's fault 6 years after his last term.
Nobody wants to take personal responsibility for anything.
To summarize:
a) Mr. Bundy has purchased the land, grazing and water rights of the areas in question.
b) He's paid the appropriate county, state fees.
c) The issue is not that he was unwilling to pay BLM, but that the agency basically told all the ranchers they had to reduce their herds by 90% (why, I think this is really about "water", and reducing water usage so more can be routed to Southern California).
d) Mr. Bundy refused to capitulate, lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in investments and basically shut down his business on a stroke of an administrator's pen, for a totally unjustified reason.
If you're still pointing fingers at either the Republicans or the Democrats and not BOTH!!!
You are part of the problem!!!!!
They're minors....
And if you engage in a contract with a minor, it is non-binding. And that should be the case for at least all of these under 18 ones.
I like that idea, create a third house composed of a randomly selected group of a couple hundred citizens. After passing congress the law goes to them for a final vote before it heads to the president, if a majority of them vote against it the law goes no further, if 2/3 vote against it the law cannot be reintroduced for a year (or more), if 90% vote against it the sponsors of the law get ejected from congress for life.
And you think we should stop talking about it? It's only cause we were that it stopped. And do not suppose that similar dastardly deeds are not being done.
Seriously?
Why wait to beat the Congressmen for voting on a bill without fully understanding it. We need to beat the Congressmen now, and then decide later if they understood what they voted on. Nancy Pelosi said so...
a) very few banks give interest any more. And even interest on $10 grand is nothing.
b) many banks now charge fees just for having an account.
Thus...
c) overpaying taxes, is often a free savings account.
&
d) since even the IRS doesn't understand their own laws, it is impossible to always know your final payment. I'd rather be safe than sorry.
The depths of your moronic answers just keep coming today. How is a child who did not inherit anything responsible for adebt that they did not incur nor provably benefit from their parent's acceptance? The IRS cannot prove the child benefited from the money, either. They are assuming without any due process.
Yes, it's a vast right (and left) wing conspiracy. *cough* *cough* *BULLSHIT* *cough*
Disclaimer: I don't like corporate money or lobbying in politics, and the concept that companies are people is pure BS as well.
Just another day in Paradise
Any tax attorney should be able to have a hay day with this.
no due process? what is that worth to the courts? aim high!
seizing of assets without proper authority? what is that worth?
the sum. interest?, pain and anguish? defamation of character, namely, with the credit reporting agencies, Scare tactics?
sounds like the Soc Sec department might lose more than they get.. ...
take em to the bank..
14219. ELIMINATION OF STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS APPLICABLE TO
COLLECTION OF DEBT BY ADMINISTRATIVE
OFFSET.
(a) Elimination.--Section 3716(e) of title 31, United States Code,
is amended to read as follows:
``(e)(1) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, regulation, or
administrative limitation, no limitation on the period within which an
offset may be initiated or taken pursuant to this section shall be
effective.
Well fuck you to. No one should be able to be held accountable for crimes that precede their birth.
Really, how the hell else am I going to: ... PROFIT!
?
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/your-obligation-pay-parents-nursing-home-bill.html
> More than half of the states have “filial responsibility” laws that make adult children responsible for their parents’ medical care, if their parents can’t pay.
And that is why Long Term Disability insurance can be a very good thing.
You obviously have not clue when it comes to estates, and how debts are handled. Please read and learn before spouting off.
So, every time someone dies, the estate should check with the IRS? Get a grip.
Just another day in Paradise
never give the government an interest-free loan by overpaying on taxes during the course of the year. rig your w4 and/or estimated taxes payments to withhold only as much as needed, based on estimated income, deductions and credits, and tax rate, so you basically come out even (up to owing $500 or so, whatever you can reasonbly afford to pay by april 15th.. just dont go over the threshhold for getting hit with a penalty, iirc that's $1000, but ianacpa) when returns must be filed. no refund due means no improper, unexpected and/or illegal confiscation of those funds.
Last I checked the rich were not only paying more in taxes, they were paying more in taxes as a percentage of their income.
Even if they were paying fewer dollars each (you may be thinking of people so rich they can hire people to help them find tax loopholes) this is not a case of the rich fucking the middle class, it's a case of the government fucking both classes, and the rich being more successful at saving themselves.
"SEC. 14218. NOTE: 7 USC 6941a. (d) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary such sums as necessary to carry out this section for fiscal years 2008 through 2012. SEC. 14219. ELIMINATION OF STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS APPLICABLE TO COLLECTION OF DEBT BY ADMINISTRATIVE OFFSET." (a) Elimination.--Section 3716(e) of title 31, United States Code, is amended to read as follows: ``(e)(1) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, regulation, or administrative limitation, no limitation on the period within which an offset may be initiated or taken pursuant to this section shall be effective.
No, the government won't deport the child because the child is a U.S. citizen. They can and do deport the parents all the damn time.
And that "policy" is enshrined in a constitutional amendment. Good luck getting that changed.
Who said anything about a conspiracy?
The two "parties" grow close in an effort to please their funders and voters (in that order), and their grandstanding and partisanship is because the need to differentiate themselves is stronger the closer they get.
No conspiracy, just idiocy.
Libs go on and on
Quit calling them liberals. Conservatives want things to stay the same. They resist change because they like the establishment. Liberals want change, freedom, equality and tend to be anti-establishment. Take a look at who "the establishment" is, who's got the power, what's status quo these days, and ask yourself who the real liberals are. I know "liberal" leaves a bad taste in your mouth, but they don't deserve that label. Call them by their name: Democrats, as in the people who created Jim Crowe laws and voted against the Civil Rights Act. Don't call them liberal.
Once the estate passes hands the receiver become liable for all debts.
In this case the estate had the money and was not defunct, ie bankrupt, therefore the debt is passed to the person(s) that inherited the estate.
end of story.
I do find it interesting that everyone get up in arms about the IRS following the law, and bitches about the IRS and not about the lawmakers that made the law.
Full Disclose: My Father worked at the IRS for 20+ years. IMO if you have IRS issues; you have only one person to blame and that is yourself.
None of this is valid.
You are not responsible for the debt of others, unless you accept it. Anytime a person dies, debt collectors contact the family members and ask them to accept responsibility for the debt. The instant you say yes, you become legally responsible for it in most cases. I recommend you always say that you will not accept financial responsibility for any debts.
If you are ever unsure, simply hang up on them, and contact an attorney. Do NOT answer their question, no matter how much pressure they put on you, or how they intimidate.
look at policy votes...on a specific issue, not your troll rhetoric...issues like:
abortion
taxation (who gets tax breaks)
creationism in textbooks
women's rights
free speech
net neutrality
on and on...you name the issue and Republicans are on the wrong side of it
if you want to continue, name a policy that is actively being voted upon right now and let's look together at it...
while democrats are a big tent, containing progressives, Clinton-era liberals, centrists/moderates and others...all of whom form a lose coalition...conversely, Republicans speak the same talking points (dictated from their financiers) and vote in lockstep
you make the logical fallacy of false equivalence
Thank you Dave Raggett
Uh... bullshit? Unless there's a glossary on the constitution that I don't know about, the distinction between "wage" and "income" is pedantic. Also, the constitution says what the courts interpret it to say, and I'm damn sure they don't agree with this.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
Typical democrat criminal behavior - stealing from those that have not committed a crime!!! democrata lie, cheat and steal, etc. Once again proof that democrats, socialists, communists, humanists, etc., should be invited to give up their citizenship and move to the socialist or communist country of their choice at their own expense!!!
you are, by policy position, a Republican.
just the way you answer the "women's rights" issue...
The Lilly Leadbetter Fair Pay Act was killed by the GOP
you're trolling not having an honest discussion
Thank you Dave Raggett
I know about this situation first hand. My father, a lifelong diabetic, signed up for social security benefits for a short period while my siblings and I were all minors. I would've been about 7. He had a 'legitimate need' as he had to undergo surgery and was not able to work for quite a while. Exactly what this "safety net" is supposed to be there for. The only problem is, the fucktards at the local SS office screwed up and had him sent checks longer than for what he was eligible to receive. He was back at work and still getting checks, and should probably have known that he should not have been, but figured the idiots knew what they were doing and continued to cash the checks. He wasn't ever instructed by them as to when the payments should stop. Who would send someone a check - every month for a year - to which they weren't entitled?
Anyway fast forward about 15 years. The SS did an audit and realized their mistake - an entire years worth of overpayment. They came after him for the money + penalties and interest, etc. He worked out a deal to pay them back since he of course didn't have the lump sum cash to pay them back. The problem is being a diabetic he is now in extremely poor health, is on dialysis, almost blind and won't be able to work for much longer. Probably won't live much longer either. So when he dies, the debt that is owed to the SS transfers to me and my siblings, because the checks were given in our name, while we were minors.
I've investigated this a bit, and it seems that you can fight it but that if you (the child of a parent who was overpaid SS money) have the ability to repay, according to their standards, you must repay. They will only forgive this "debt" if you are destitute. This despite the absolute FACT that you yourself never signed up for benefits or received the checks (since they are made out to your gaurdian). Plenty of cases have gone to court and lost. It is completely fucked up, I can not understand how a person can be saddled with such a debt as a minor. I'm sure I can hire a lawyer at considerable expense to myself and maybe find a way out of paying this, but why should I have to? I didn't incur the debt, I didn't sign my name anywhere to receive the debt nor was I of legal age to do so.
Slashdot is pretty left leaning, I get that so I'm sure there won't be much sympathy here where gov't can do no wrong (unless they are trampling our 'tech' freedoms of course), but it seems to me that whenever the government has their hand out with and an olive branch there is always a big string attached and plenty of unintended consequences. BTW what are the consequences for the government idiot who approved the overpayment, and did not properly advise my father as to exactly what he was entitled to receive and for how long? A cushy pension on the tax payer's dime.
Contracts are non-binding when democrats are in power!!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04... explains in their 14 Apr edition that the Feds have Seen the Light and discontinued said policy because of the feedback from the Washington Post story. Every once in a while, we win one.
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
I'm not speaking of the US but instead providing an example from anther country of a child "held accountable for crimes that precede their birth". In Australia, due to odd wording of a law, babies born to refugees are classified as "maritime arrivals" and denied citizenship. If their parents are not refugees that "Anchor Baby" situation applies. I'm not going to argue if it's right/wrong or doesn't matter, I'm just using it as an example.
stop bullshitting me, yourself, and all of /.
YOU ARE A REPUBLICAN
your policy positions are virtually identical
just accept it and move on...this discussion certainly cannot continue with your rhetorical nonsense
Thank you Dave Raggett
I know "liberal" leaves a bad taste in your mouth, but they don't deserve that label. Call them by their name: Democrats, as in the people who created Jim Crowe laws and voted against the Civil Rights Act. Don't call them liberal.
You mean people who are all dead now? Those democrats? What do they have to do with the current democrats/liberals/whatever?
as a 30 year old health male that hasn't needed to see a doctor in 10+ years, WHY THE F should i be paying more cause obama care cause i am naturally healthy?
That's the funny thing about healthy people -- they don't stay that way forever.
Not necessarily. The government might pay money to a minor child by sending it to the parent or guardian, and might make an overpayment. Apparently, that's the principle here. It sucks to have money taken from you because of something you never actually saw that happened 40 years ago, but it still can be your debt.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
This policy comes from the fact that Social Security recipients die but often their next of kin do not report the event to the SSA, and a month or more of ineligible benefits wind up in the hands of some survivor in the family. This is not quite theft, but the fact is: Some family member fraudulently cashed a DEAD person's check that was legally void once the beneficiary was DEAD. This can only work due to the family's failure to notify the SSA promptly that the beneficiary was DEAD, which is the duty of the family. Now maybe everyone is too bereaved to be telling the government that grandma has passed, but in that case you ought not to be cashing a DEAD guy's checks. It is not reasonable to expect the government to make a federal investigation of who in the family wrongly took this money, whether it was deliberately or somewhat innocently taken. They take it back from the next of kin, and if the fault was with somebody else, well, you sort that out within the family. Sure that is messy, but it is a family mess and not a government mess. That the government takes it back from a refund, and doesn't affirmatively prosecute you, seems quite kind and gentle.
I just vomited... I simply can't grasp the sick machinations of the US government. It really *is* "worse than has ever occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will."
Next, seizure of assets from political groups that oppose Obama agenda. 'When you see lots of people in Brown Shirts with Obama logos walking around, be VERY worried'
Yeah. I mean people die so frequently, I guess it's not at all significant event in the course of many people's lives.
You're a Republican because you *choose* to forfeit analytical thought and parrot the GOP line in all your communication.
You **dont engage in actual discussion of an issue** you spout the GOP line and then TROLL
You're a troll, Republican, and you're fooling yourself if you think you have any tenable position
Thank you Dave Raggett
You Cannot win!!