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IRS Can Now Seize Your Tax Refund To Pay a Relative's Debt

Posted by Unknown on from the dead-...-beat-relatives? dept.

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.'"

7 of 632 comments (clear)

  1. Over 18 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:Over 18 by Z00L00K · · Score: 5, Insightful

      But they seem to recognize inheritance of debt.

      I thought that inherited debt was something that was used in medieval times and in some third world countries to effectively create slavery.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    2. Re:Over 18 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are right, and that is effectively what they are attempting now. A way to increase revenue and have a class of people that are eternally in poverty with no recourse.

    3. Re:Over 18 by Duhavid · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Quite. Now, who added the single line spoken of to the farm bill that opened the door for this?

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      emt 377 emt 4
    4. Re:Over 18 by DigiShaman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well YES! That's the Democrat (the politicians, not the voters) Party for you. Rules for them, and rules for everyone else. They actually believe in a caste based system. The idea being that if you accept your position in life, you'd be less inclined to fight for a higher standard of living. It makes management of a serfdom much easier along with the ease of accumulation of power.

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      Life is not for the lazy.
  2. Ex Post Facto Law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Re:Late to the party as usual.. by Cryacin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So what? How about I go over your house and beat your face in. Hey, I've stopped now! Let's not let that get in the way of a good criminal rant!

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    Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck