IRS going after old debt

Usually I don't put too much stock into what Fox News says. They tend to sensationalize and dramatize their stories. But this email from my dad isn't the first I've heard of this happening. I've seen this reported in other reputable sources. So, I'll pass it along:

Subject: IRS going AFTER OLD DEBT

 

IRS going after decades-old debts from children of debtors ‘unbelievable,’
says Megyn Kelly April 12, 2014 by Michael Dorstewitz

 

The old maxim that you can’t hold children responsible for the sins of their parents no longer applies — at least as far as Washington is concerned.

Congress quietly passed legislation in 2011 lifting the former 10-year statute of limitations on money owed to the government, allowing Uncle Sam to collect debts going back decades. The measure also allows the government to collect from debtors’ children and grandchildren, according to Fox News.

Now, “some 400,000 Americans may see their tax refund checks grabbed by the government,” Fox reported.

Former Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams called it “classic abuse” during his Friday appearance on “The Kelly File.”

“Imagine it,” he told Fox News Host Megyn Kelly. Instead of a refund check, “you get a letter from the IRS. And it says, ’40 years ago, your parents got a disability payment that we happened to overpay. … So now we’re taking it out of your tax refund.’”

Think it can’t happen in America? Think again. Fox also reported:

A woman named Mary Grice, whose father died when she was 4 years old in 1977, leaving her mother with five children. Thirty-seven years later, the Social Security administration is claiming that it overpaid someone in her family, but it isn’t sure whom, and is going after Ms. Grice for the alleged debt.

When Megyn Kelly asked Adams what the chances are of the government dropping the debt against Grice, Adams answered, “Zero.”

“This is an administration that loves to suspend laws when they’re inconvenient and not enforce certain laws,” Adams said. “Let’s see if they do it here.”

Fox News host Greta Van Susteren took up the Grace case in her “Off the Record” comment Friday.

In no uncertain terms, she said, the government “stole” $2,996 from Grice’s tax refund for the alleged Social Security overpayment 37 years ago. But it gets even better.

“Social Security told her [Grice], they had no records explaining the debt,” Van Susteren said, comparing the matter to the State Department’s “ho-hum” response to the discovery that it had lost $8 billion in funds while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state.