Friday, April 11, 2014

Social Security Administration Uses IRS To Seize Poor Peoples' Tax Refunds

Social Security, Treasury target taxpayers for their parents’ decades-old debts.


Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post - Mary Grice of Takoma Park, MD, talks with her attorney Robert Vogel, at Vogel's home in Rockville Maryland, April 5, 2014.
A few weeks ago, with no notice, the U.S. government intercepted Mary Grice’s tax refunds from both the IRS and the state of Maryland. Grice had no idea that Uncle Sam had seized her money until some days later, when she got a letter saying that her refund had gone to satisfy an old debt to the government — a very old debt.


When Grice was 4, back in 1960, her father died, leaving her mother with five children to raise. Until the kids turned 18, Sadie Grice got survivor benefits from Social Security to help feed and clothe them.
Now, Social Security claims it overpaid someone in the Grice family — it’s not sure who — in 1977. After 37 years of silence, four years after Sadie Grice died, the government is coming after her daughter. Why the feds chose to take Mary’s money, rather than her surviving siblings’, is a mystery.
Across the nation, hundreds of thousands of taxpayers who are expecting refunds this month are instead getting letters like the one Grice got, informing them that because of a debt they never knew about — often a debt incurred by their parents — the government has confiscated their check.
The Treasury Department has intercepted $1.9 billion in tax refunds already this year — $75 million of that on debts delinquent for more than 10 years, said Jeffrey Schramek, assistant commissioner of 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.
No one seems eager to take credit for reopening all these long-closed cases. A Social Security spokeswoman says the agency didn’t seek the change; ask Treasury. Treasury says it wasn’t us; try Congress. Congressional staffers say the request probably came from the bureaucracy.
The only explanation the government provides for suddenly going after decades-old debts comes from Social Security spokeswoman Dorothy Clark: “We have an obligation to current and future Social Security beneficiaries to attempt to recoup money that people received when it was not due.”
Since the drive to collect on very old debts began in 2011, the Treasury Department has collected $424 million in debts that were more than 10 years old. Those debts were owed to many federal agencies, but the one that has many Americans howling this tax season is the Social Security Administration, which has found 400,000 taxpayers who collectively owe $714 million on debts more than 10 years old. The SSA expects to have begun proceedings against all of those people by this summer.
“It was a shock,” said 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.”
Grice filed suit against the Social Security Administration in federal court in Greenbelt,MD., alleging that the government violated her right to due process by holding her responsible for a $2,996 debt supposedly incurred under her father’s Social Security number.
Social Security officials told Grice that six people — Grice, her four siblings and her father’s first wife, whom she never knew — had received benefits under her father’s account. The government doesn’t look into exactly who got the overpayment; the policy is to seek compensation from the oldest sibling and work down through the family until the debt is paid.
The Federal Trade Commission, on its Web site, advises Americans that “family members typically are not obligated to pay the debts of a deceased relative from their own assets.” But Social Security officials say that if children indirectly received assistance from public dollars paid to a parent, the children’s money can be taken, no matter how long ago any overpayment occurred.
“While we are responsible for collecting delinquent debts owed to taxpayers, we understand the importance of ensuring that debtors are treated fairly,” Treasury’s Schramek said in a statement. He said Treasury requires that debtors be given due process.
Social Security spokeswoman Clark, who declined to discuss Grice’s or any other case, even with the taxpayer’s permission, said the agency is “sensitive to concerns about our attempts to arrange repayment of overpayments.” She said that before taking any money, Social Security makes “multiple attempts to contact debtors via the U.S. Mail and by phone.”
Grice, who works for the Food and Drug Administration and lives in Takoma Park, in the same apartment she’s resided in since 1984, never got any notice about a debt.
Social Security officials told her they had sent their notice to her post office box in Roxboro, N.C. Grice rented that box from 1977 to 1979 and never since. And Social Security has Grice’s current address: Every year, it sends her a statement about her benefits.
Their record-keeping seems to be very spotty,” she said.
Treasury officials say that before they will take someone’s refund, the agency owed the money must certify the debt, meaning there must be evidence of the overpayment. But Social Security officials told Grice they had no records explaining the debt.
“The craziest part of this whole thing is the way the government seizes a child’s money to satisfy a debt that child never even knew about,” says Robert Vogel, Grice’s attorney. “They’ll say that somebody got paid for that child’s benefit, but the child had no control over the money and there’s no way to know if the parent ever used the money for the benefit of that kid.”
Grice, the middle of five children, said neither of her surviving siblings — one older, one younger — has had any money taken by the government. When Grice asked why she had been selected to pay the debt, she was told it was because she had an income and her address popped up — the correct one this time.
Grice found a lawyer willing to take her case without charge. Vogel is exercised about the constitutional violations he sees in the retroactive lifting of the 10-year limit on debt collection. “Can the government really bring back to life a case that was long dead?” the lawyer asked. “Can it really be right to seize a child’s money to satisfy a parent’s debt?”
But many other taxpayers whose refunds have been taken say they’ve been unable to contest the confiscations because of the cost, because Social Security cannot provide records detailing the original overpayment, and because the citizens, following advice from the IRS to keep financial documents for just three years, had long since trashed their own records.
In Glenarm, Ill., Brenda and Mike Samonds have spent the past year trying to figure out how to get back the $189.10 tax refund the government seized, claiming that Mike’s mother, who died 33 years ago, had been overpaid on survivor’s benefits after Mike’s father died in 1969.
“It was never Mike’s money, it was his mother’s,” Brenda Samonds said. “The government took the money first and then they sent us the letter. We could never get one sentence from them explaining why the money was taken.” The government mailed its notice about the debt to the house Mike’s mother lived in 40 years ago.
The Social Security spokeswoman said the agency uses a private contractor to seek current addresses and is supposed to halt collections if notices are returned as undeliverable.
After hours on the phone trying and failing to get information about the debt Mike’s mother was said to owe, the Samondses gave up.
After waiting on hold for two hours with Social Security last week, Ted Verbich also concluded it wasn’t worth the time or money to fight for the $172 the government intercepted last month.
In 1977, Verbich, now 57, was in college at the University of Maryland when he took a full-time job in an accountant’s office. Because he was earning income, he knew he had to give up the survivor’s benefits his mother had received since his father died, when Verbich was 4. But his $70 monthly checks — “They helped with the car payment,” he said — kept coming for a short time after he started work, and Verbich was notified in 1978 that he had to repay about $600. He did.
Thirty-six years later, with no notice, “they snatched my Maryland tax refund,” said Verbich, a federal worker who has lived at the same address in Glendale, Md,. for 30 years and regularly receives Social Security statements there. The feds insisted that he owed $172 but could provide no documents to back up the claim.
Verbich has given up on getting his refund, but he wants a receipt stating that his debt to his country is resolved.
“I’ll put in the request,” a Social Security clerk told Verbich, “but in reality, you’ll never get anything.”
Grice was also told there was little point in seeking a waiver of her debt. Collections can only be halted if the person passes two tests, Clark said: The taxpayer must prove that he “is without fault, and [that] repayment of the overpayment would deprive the person of income needed for ordinary living expenses.”
More than 1,200 appeals have been filed on the old cases, Clark said; taxpayers have won about 10 percent of those appeals.
The Treasury initially held the full amount of Grice’s federal and state refunds, a total of $4,462. Last week, after The Washington Post inquired about Grice’s case, the government returned the portion of her refund above the $2,996 owed on her father’s account.
But unless the feds can prove that she ever received any of the overpayment, Grice wants all of her money back.
“Look, I love a good fight, especially for principle,” she said. “My mom used to say, ‘This country is carried on the backs of the little people,’ and now I see what she meant. This is really sad.”
(Fisher, Mard, The Washington Post, April 11, 2014, p. A1)

 

CNBC (Apr 11, 2014)

US seizing tax refunds of children over parents' debt?!

Friday, 11 Apr 2014
The government is now going through old records to see if it overpaid people on Social Security. If it thinks it did, it can now seize the IRS tax refund checks of the CHILDREN of those people it thinks it overpaid.
This isn't a proposal—it's already happening. For the past three years, the government has been confiscating hundreds of thousands of Americans' tax refunds, according to the Washington Post. It has already confiscated $1.9 billion in tax refunds this year alone.

Peter Zander | Workbook Stock | Getty Images
The amazing thing is that the government is doing this even if it has little or no proof and no exact details. And the letters the government sends to unsuspecting taxpayers are frightening, use accusatory language, and include other financial threats.
"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," Mary Grice, who had her tax refunds seized a few weeks ago, is quoted as saying.

As usual, no one in the government is willing to take the responsibility for this new policy—Social Security said it didn't do it, ask the Treasury Department. Treasury said—ask Congress.
If you think this is some kind of unprecedented outrage, you're right. But here's some advice: get used to it.
Tax refunds are clearly becoming the new promised land for government regulators and bureaucrats desperate for more revenues. We already know that confiscating tax refunds are the only real way the IRS will be able to impose Obamacare non-compliance penalties, and now it seems like the Social Security Administration is jumping on that bandwagon.
But there's a more powerful and disturbing message here. Remember that the people who benefited from these alleged Social Security payments have not committed any crime—that's why the government doesn't need to provide any proof or real documentation. It's more likely that the SSA simply screwed up and expects the descendants of its accidental beneficiaries to pay up. And again, the money comes out first before you can protest and find out why.

So, now we have yet another very good reason to make sure you don't get a tax refund. First, getting a tax refund means you've given the government a free loan for 12 months.
Second, tax refunds are the only way you can be punished—rightly or wrongly—for any ObamaCare (Affordable Care Act) individual mandate non-compliance. And third, your tax refund is now a possible target for government bureaucrats who screwed up in the past and want to come after your money to make it right. If the SSA can do it, what's to stop the other agencies?
After hearing this story, you wouldn't think anyone would have to remind the public that Washington already controls too much of their money and has trampled on too much of our financial rights. But I will anyway since so many politicians and other elites don't seem to be backing down on their incessant calls for more regulations, oversight and of course, more taxes.

Once again, we have a case of the government saying: "When you screw up, you pay. When we screw up, you also pay."
If only our elected leaders would be so honest with us at election time.
This is commentary from Jake Novak, the supervising producer of "Street Signs."

POLITICS

Government suspends controversial program to recover money from adult children of dead taxpayers

The Social Security Administration announced Monday it is suspending a controversial program that goes after adult children of deceased taxpayers who the government claims were recipients of overpayments more than a decade ago.
Acting Social Security Commissioner Carolyn W. Colvin said she has directed an immediate halt to the three-year-old program while the agency does a review. The controversial program seized tax refunds in an effort to recoup the funds.
The move to stop the program came after many of the recipients and members of Congress complained to the federal agency.
"While this policy of seizing tax refunds to repay decades-old Social Security overpayments might be allowed under the law, it is entirely unjust," Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland said in a letter to Colvin.
The program was authorized by a 2008 change in the law that allows Social Security and other federal agencies to use a Treasury program to seize federal payments to recoup debts that are more than 10 years old. Previously, there was a 10-year limit on using the program.
In most cases, the seizures are done through tax refunds.
The change was tucked into the 2008 farm bill -- but trying to track down which lawmaker added in the one line that lifted the 10-year statute hasn’t been easy. And, not surprisingly, Washington lawmakers haven’t been eager to step up to the plate and take the blame.
Leslie Paige, vice president of policy and communications at Citizens Against Government Waste, says it’s a common problem in Congress.
“Lawmakers try to sneak in these one or two lines into gigantic legislative packages,” Paige told FoxNews.com. “It’s a dirty little secret. Members of Congress don’t know what they are voting on most of the time.”
Paige said the “unintended consequences” of these bills are felt hardest on Americans often left powerless to fight the federal government.
“All [lawmakers] care about is ‘Did my pork, my earmark, my little provision get into this gigantic mess of a bill?’” she said.
Following Colvin’s announcement Monday, Boxer said in a statement: "I am grateful that the Social Security Administration has chosen not to penalize innocent Americans while the agency determines a fair path forward on how to handle past errors."
Mikulski added, "Garnishing these refunds to collect overpayments incurred through no fault of their own and based on decades-old errors is a policy that must not continue." 
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, praised the Social Security Administration for suspending the debt collection but continued to raise questions Monday about how this started.
"It's not clear where that authority came in. There's a difference between collecting decades-old debt from the debtors and decades-old debt from their kids," he said.
The Social Security Administration says it has identified about 400,000 people with old debts. They owe a total of $714 million.
So far, the agency says it has collected $55 million.
Colvin said she was suspending the program "pending a thorough review of our responsibility and discretion under the current law to refer debt to the Treasury Department."
"If any Social Security or Supplemental Security Income beneficiary believes they have been incorrectly assessed with an overpayment under this program, I encourage them to request an explanation or seek options to resolve the overpayment," Colvin said.
The Washington Post first reported on the program.
There are several scenarios in which people may have received overpayments as children. For example, when a parent of a minor child dies, the child may be eligible for survivor's benefits, which are typically sent to the surviving parent or guardian.
If there was an overpayment made on behalf of the child, that child could be held liable years later, as an adult.
Also, if a child is disabled, he or she may receive overpayments. Those overpayments would typically be taken out of current payments, once they are discovered.
But if disability payments were discontinued because the child's condition improved, Social Security could try to recoup the overpayments years later.
"We want to assure the public that we do not seek restitution through tax refund offset in cases when the debt in question was established prior to the debtor turning 18 years of age," Social Security spokesman Mark Hinkle said in an email. "Also, we do not use tax refund offset to collect the debt of a person's relative — we only use it to collect the overpaid benefits the person received for himself or herself."
Hinkle said the debt collection could be waived if the person is without fault and repayment would "deprive the person of income needed for ordinary living expenses or would be unfair for another reason."
The Associated Press contributed to this report 
This is commentary from Jake Novak, the supervising producer of "Street Signs."

FORT THOMAS, Ky. – Cathy Frost opened her mail last week expecting to receive her tax refund. Instead, the Treasury Department sent her a notice that Uncle Sam was keeping her $344.
"I was taken aback. I had already allocated the funds. I couldn't believe it," the Fort Thomas woman said Friday.
"I didn't know the government could just keep your refund. I felt like I was being robbed."
Thousands of Americans had the same feeling when they got the same letter.
Most of them didn't know that the Treasury Department has been confiscating tax refunds to recover government over-payments - mainly in Social Security benefits -  from beneficiaries or their survivors.
Some of the debts, as in Frost's case, are their parents' and are decades old.
There was such an outcry from taxpayers and politicians that the Social Security Administration announced this week that it was going to stop seizing tax refunds pending an SSA review.
But that doesn't help Frost, a 55-year-old single woman who just lost her job due to downsizing.
She found out she might not get her money back, even though the SSA overpaid her father – and not her - some  40 years ago, when Frost was a minor.
The whole episode has left her shaking her head, frustrated with her government.
Frost said she called the 800 number on the letter last week and talked with an SSA office worker in Chicago.
"They were unable to give me any details, only that there was an overpayment of $869.20 that may have been dispersed to myself or any family member," she said.
Frost said she told the SSA rep that her father had died when she was 18.
"I wasn't eligible for benefits, but my younger brother was 17 and my sister was 15, so they would have received benefits for a short period of time," she said.
"It could even have been my father, because my mother died when I was 9, so he might have received benefits from her.
"They said, 'Well, that must have been it.' But they couldn't tell me for sure. They said they didn't have any details.
"They said all they could do is take a request to have somebody contact me and send me more information.
"I thought, 'This is insane! How could people do that? And this is our government!' "
When the SSA announced that it was suspending the seizure program, the agency directed Frost and other taxpayers to visit a field office and request a waiver for the overpayment.
Frost said she went to the SSA office in Florence on Good Friday, April 18th.
"They checked the records and told me it was an overpayment to my father when I was a minor, so I'm eligible for a waiver," she said.  "They gave me a list of things I'm supposed to turn in, and if they determine I'm not able to afford the overpayment, they will waive it."
Talk about government red tape.
The SSA wants to see Frost's rent or mortgage payments, utilities, loans and credit card payments, medical and dental payments, insurance, property taxes and other fees and obligations, she said.
Before she left the office, the staffer gave her a list of local attorneys, she said.
She said she's thinking about calling one.
"We're not talking about that much money, and they'd probably decide I'm able to afford it. But I don't make that much and I just got downsized from Avon after 17 years," Frost said.
"It doesn't seem fair for the government to penalize me for something that happened when I was a minor, that I was not a part of."
She said the government did not seize her brother's or sister's tax refunds - only hers.
The Social Security Administration says it has identified about 400,000 people with old debts. They owe a total of $714 million.
So far, the agency says it has collected $55 million.
There used to be a 10-year limit on collecting old debts, but thanks to an unidentified legislator who slipped a rider into the 2008 farm bill, the government can legally recover any overpayment, even from 40 years ago.
"It's totally nuts," Frost said.

POLITICS

Government suspends controversial program to recover money from adult children of dead taxpayers

The Social Security Administration announced Monday it is suspending a controversial program that goes after adult children of deceased taxpayers who the government claims were recipients of overpayments more than a decade ago.
Acting Social Security Commissioner Carolyn W. Colvin said she has directed an immediate halt to the three-year-old program while the agency does a review. The controversial program seized tax refunds in an effort to recoup the funds.
The move to stop the program came after many of the recipients and members of Congress complained to the federal agency.
"While this policy of seizing tax refunds to repay decades-old Social Security overpayments might be allowed under the law, it is entirely unjust," Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland said in a letter to Colvin.
The program was authorized by a 2008 change in the law that allows Social Security and other federal agencies to use a Treasury program to seize federal payments to recoup debts that are more than 10 years old. Previously, there was a 10-year limit on using the program.
In most cases, the seizures are done through tax refunds.
The change was tucked into the 2008 farm bill -- but trying to track down which lawmaker added in the one line that lifted the 10-year statute hasn’t been easy. And, not surprisingly, Washington lawmakers haven’t been eager to step up to the plate and take the blame.
Leslie Paige, vice president of policy and communications at Citizens Against Government Waste, says it’s a common problem in Congress.
“Lawmakers try to sneak in these one or two lines into gigantic legislative packages,” Paige told FoxNews.com. “It’s a dirty little secret. Members of Congress don’t know what they are voting on most of the time.”
Paige said the “unintended consequences” of these bills are felt hardest on Americans often left powerless to fight the federal government.
“All [lawmakers] care about is ‘Did my pork, my earmark, my little provision get into this gigantic mess of a bill?’” she said.
Following Colvin’s announcement Monday, Boxer said in a statement: "I am grateful that the Social Security Administration has chosen not to penalize innocent Americans while the agency determines a fair path forward on how to handle past errors."
Mikulski added, "Garnishing these refunds to collect overpayments incurred through no fault of their own and based on decades-old errors is a policy that must not continue." 
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, praised the Social Security Administration for suspending the debt collection but continued to raise questions Monday about how this started.
"It's not clear where that authority came in. There's a difference between collecting decades-old debt from the debtors and decades-old debt from their kids," he said.
The Social Security Administration says it has identified about 400,000 people with old debts. They owe a total of $714 million.
So far, the agency says it has collected $55 million.
Colvin said she was suspending the program "pending a thorough review of our responsibility and discretion under the current law to refer debt to the Treasury Department."
"If any Social Security or Supplemental Security Income beneficiary believes they have been incorrectly assessed with an overpayment under this program, I encourage them to request an explanation or seek options to resolve the overpayment," Colvin said.
The Washington Post first reported on the program.
There are several scenarios in which people may have received overpayments as children. For example, when a parent of a minor child dies, the child may be eligible for survivor's benefits, which are typically sent to the surviving parent or guardian.
If there was an overpayment made on behalf of the child, that child could be held liable years later, as an adult.
Also, if a child is disabled, he or she may receive overpayments. Those overpayments would typically be taken out of current payments, once they are discovered.
But if disability payments were discontinued because the child's condition improved, Social Security could try to recoup the overpayments years later.
"We want to assure the public that we do not seek restitution through tax refund offset in cases when the debt in question was established prior to the debtor turning 18 years of age," Social Security spokesman Mark Hinkle said in an email. "Also, we do not use tax refund offset to collect the debt of a person's relative — we only use it to collect the overpaid benefits the person received for himself or herself."
Hinkle said the debt collection could be waived if the person is without fault and repayment would "deprive the person of income needed for ordinary living expenses or would be unfair for another reason."
The Associated Press contributed to this report




House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Charles Boustany, and Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Sam Johnson seek answers on Treasury debt recovery program

TreasuryHouse Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) and Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) recently sought answers about the Treasury Department’s Offset Program and its effects on children who once received Social Security benefits.
Boustany and Johnson wrote to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and acting Social Security Administration Commissioner Carolyn Colvin about recent reports that adults who may have once received Social Security benefits as children had their tax refunds withheld for overpayments made decades ago to their parents.
The parents of some of the affected citizens are deceased and many of the taxpayers never received notice that they owed a debt as provided under law.
Colvin announced last week that the SSA would stop additional referrals of debts to the Treasury Department owed to Social Security that are 10 years or older for collection under the Treasury Offset Program.
“SSA’s decision to stop referrals was the right thing to do,” Boustany and Johnson said. “However, Treasury and Social Security still owe an explanation to the American people. While the government must protect taxpayer dollars, it is difficult to justify the practice of seizing innocent Americans’ tax refunds to pay debts resulting from benefits they may or may not have received when they were children, with little or no notice or evidence documenting the overpayment. The sooner we have those answers the sooner we can work to protect Americans from agency actions that are harsh and unfair.”
The Washington Post reported on April 10 that the Treasury has intercepted $1.9 billion in tax refunds this year, including $75 million of delinquent debts 10 years of age or older. Additionally, 400,000 taxpayers who owe a total of $714 million in debts more than 10 years old have been identified by SSA.




‘Government suspends controversial program to recover money from adult children of dead taxpayers’


Social_security_card cc
In the words of 2 people I spoke to about this story – “How can this be legal?”
Good question. At least they’re stopping it.

(From FoxNews.com)
The Social Security Administration announced Monday it is suspending a controversial program that goes after adult children of deceased taxpayers who the government claims were recipients of overpayments more than a decade ago.
Acting Social Security Commissioner Carolyn W. Colvin said she has directed an immediate halt to the three-year-old program while the agency does a review. The controversial program seized tax refunds in an effort to recoup the funds.
Another win for social media.
Click here for the article.

Source

"Government suspends controversial program to recover money from adult children of dead taxpayers." Foxnews.com, 2014-04-14.

Nick Sorrentino

About Nick Sorrentino

Nick Sorrentino is the co-founder and editor of AgainstCronyCapitalism.org. A political and communications consultant with clients across the political spectrum, his work has been featured at Breitbart.comReason.com, NPR.com, Townhall, The Daily Caller, and many other publications. A graduate of Mary Washington College he lives just outside of Washington DC where he can keep an eye on Leviathan.

Purported debt from the past coming back to haunt local man, others


By: Mike Beaudet
Kevin Rothstein, Producer


(MyFoxBoston.com) -- Jack Earle was just a boy 48 years ago when his father died of a heart attack, a tragedy that also led to his and his young siblings receiving the Social Security benefits his father would have been given had he lived to see retirement.
           
Earle went on to become a career Army man and then move to a civilian job. Approaching his own retirement, he was shocked then to find that his tax refund this year was being held back by the IRS for a debt he had no idea he owed.
           
“I received a letter in the mail from the IRS garnishing my wages out of my federal tax check for $352 and I couldn’t figure out why,” he told FOX Undercover. “They said, ‘This is a garnishment for overpayment of Social Security.’ I said Social Security? What are you talking about? ‘Well this is from when your father died,’” was the reply, he recalled.
           
Earle had no idea what the overpayments were from, though he knows he never profited from them.
           
“My brothers and I, we never saw any of this money. Maybe if we didn’t see it because it was putting food on the table or clothing on us or something like that but to come after myself now 40-plus years later I think is incredible,” he said.
           
Earle later learned that the Social Security Administration believes he received two different checks in the 1970s that were overpayments, though he has no record of them and can’t get any records from the government.    
           
“I told the guy on the phone, I said, ‘He died almost 50 years ago, 48-49 years ago. And for $352 you’re taking money out of me for that?’” he said. “I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing”
           
“So I asked the gentleman on the phone, ‘How many other people is this affecting? He goes, ‘We’re working on cases right now from the 1970s and ‘80s.’ That just floored me,” he said.
           
“Does it make you wonder how many other people are getting these same notices?” asked FOX Undercover reporter Mike Beaudet.
           
“Absolutely,” Earle replied. “I think that is the main thing I want to find out, how many other people in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, the United States does this happen to?”
           
Plenty, it turns out, starting with his brother, whose tax refund was garnished last year. The Social Security Administration says it has identified approximately 400,000 Americans who were overpaid at some point in the past, overpayments they are now pursuing thanks to an obscure provision passed by Congress in 2008 allowing the government to collect debts older than 10 years.
           
The Social Security Administration says in a statement to FOX Undercover it is owed $714 million in old debts. But a massive push to collect the debts from tax refunds has also resulted in widespread confusion.
           
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, (R-Iowa), wrote a scathing letter earlier this month to the Social Security Administration blasting them for problems with the debt collection.
           
“It appears that (Social Security Administration) is not performing due diligence in notifying individuals or allowing them to inspect records of the debt they supposedly owe, which are violations of the law,” he wrote.
           
That also describes Earles’s struggle to find answers about his supposed past debt, which he is appealing.
           
The Social Security Administration has suspended new referrals to the IRS for debt collection pending a review, though it’s unclear where that leaves Earle.
           
“All they told me is that it's for my father's death, Social Security benefits. That's all they would say to me,” he said. “At the Social Security office in Worcester, they couldn't give me any answers. That's all I want. Why are you coming after me 45 years later?” he said.
           
“You would think the government would have something better to do than this?” Beaudet asked him.       
           
“Correct,” Earle replied. “There are a lot more people out there doing a lot more harm to this country than my $352. Go after them.”


Apr 28, 2014 10:00 PM by Rick Spruill

6 Investigates: That Old, Family Debt Could Be Yours To Pay

CORPUS CHRISTI, TX - The notice arrived on Treasury Department letterhead to Inelda Carlisle's mailbox one day this Spring.
They told her that, because her Dad owed money to the Social Security Administration, they were taking $654.40 from her tax refund to pay his debt.
Carlisle, an accounting department employee for a local utility company, suspected fraud.
So, she called the 800 number published on the notice. And waited 45 minutes for a representative to give her only a few details.
"The only information they could pull up was 1976 and 1980, and the address," she said.
After several phone calls spent cutting through the red tape, Carlisle was able to piece together the story.
The Social Security Administration audited it's books and found they'd given her Dad a little too much money as part of a disability claim, back in the 1970s.
They took Carlisle's refund because they can't go after Ramiro Rodriguez; he's been dead since 1993.
But, a federal farm bill, passed almost six years ago, removed the statute of limitations on the government collecting debts.
A single sentence, inserted in the bill by an unknown lawmaker, removed a barrier to collections.
KRIS-6 asked certified public accountant T. Hardie Bowman, to explain.
"Up until this farm bill was passed we had a 10 year statute of limitations for federal debts," he Bowman said. "And this new law simply extends (the) 10 years, retroactively."
And it applies to a variety of benefits, including the disability claim filed by Ramiro Rodriguez.
The program, while allowed under the law, has received universal resistance. Acting Social Security Commissioner, acting on the backlash, called a halt to the collections on April 14.
Read her statement, here. - PDF
But for Carlisle, the issue is about what she believes are shady collection tactics. That's because, until March, she knew nothing of her father's debt.
She said an official claimed they mailed her a notice: to Tomball, Texas, in 1980.
"In 1980, I was still living in Grand Forks, North Dakota," Carlisle said.
"I deal with customer service and I know what customer service is," she said. "And this is not customer service."
U.S. Representative Blake Farenthold said he expects to hear from the Social Security Administration on the collections efforts.
"This looks to me like it violates the due process clause along with common sense," he told KRIS-6 Investigates.
He said if officials are unwilling to guarantee a permanent halt to the ancient debt collections, more may be done to strip them of the power to go after children of those who've long since died yet owe Uncle Sam money.
But you can seek a refund. T. Hardie Bowman said to contact the Social Security Administration and appeal the collection. If that does not work, file a form 911 with the Internal Revenue Service.

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