Although children aren’t generally responsible for their parents’ debts, the rule apparently doesn’t apply when the federal government wants to collect.
As Marc Fisher recently reported in the Washington Post here, since 2011 when the federal government repealed the ten year statute of limitations applicable to governmental claims for overpayments of benefits, the government has enthusiastically pursued collection of old debts; often seizing tax refunds from children for overpayments the feds claim were made to their parents more than thirty years ago. The Social Security Administration, for instance, has identified more than 400,000 tax payers who supposedly owe more than $714 million on debts more than ten years old. The report is also noted here and here.
© 4/14/2014 Lawrence B. Hunt of Hunt & Associates, P.C. All rights reserved.
See an update to this article here:
/2014/04/15/update-to-the-feds-seizure-of-tax-refunds-from-relatives-to-recover-claimed-social-security-benefit-overpayments-made-more-than-ten-years-ago/