Posted on 12/28/2014 6:01:01 AM PST by Kaslin
To those nattering nabobs of negativity who don’t trust government to do the right thing, or even to stop doing the wrong thing once discovered, I just want to say: “You’re right.”
Again.
Last April, a Washington Post exposé about a bizarrely tyrannical debt collection program caused the Social Security Administration (SAA) to publicly promise it would cease and desist from said program. The Social Security bureaucracy had been snatching the income tax refund checks of grown children whose parents, many decades ago, had allegedly been sent excess money intended for the care and feeding of these then-youngsters by this same incompetent outfit.
The booty? A not insignificant $75 million. The victims? A whopping 400,000 of them.
Due process? The SSA didn’t go before a judge to prove these people owed a valid debt, nor even bother to inform folks that their tax refunds were being seized. Instead, the Social Security gang just flat-out took the money . . . surreptitiously, like any other thief in the night.
In a stark break with their name, Social Security officials decided to collect these “debts” by intercepting state and federal tax refunds before they could be sent to the adults whose parents or parent had allegedly received excess benefits some three or even four decades ago.
Of course, Congress has its bloody, rotten hands in this. A provision in the 2008 farm bill authorized SSA to beginning collecting overpayments going back beyond the 10-year limit that had been the law.
In some of these collection cases, the SSA wasn’t certain who exactly owed the money. In one case, the agency went after a child even when they could find the mother who supposedly owed the money. Why? The mother had already beaten them in federal court.
The SSA flouted more than common sense and decency. Children should not be held legally responsible for the debts of their parents.
Hasn’t this been settled law for at least the last couple of centuries?
“They are going after kids, and their briefs prove it,” explains Robert Vogel, an attorney litigating against the SSA, “They’re asking the court to be the first court in the United States to force a child to pay a debt incurred by the parents. It’s really quite disgusting.”
Mary Grice received a letter informing her that both her Maryland and federal tax refunds had been stolen by the Social Security collection agency. Her father died when the now 58-year-old was only four. Her mother received Social Security survivor benefits to help provide for Mary and Mary’s four siblings. Apparently, there was an overpayment related to one of the children’s benefits; SSA doesn’t even know on behalf of which child.
“What incenses me is the way they went about this,” Grice told The Post. “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.”
Thankfully, after publicity back in April about the agency’s ugly tactics, acting commissioner Carolyn Colvin announced such collection efforts would stop. “I have directed an immediate halt to further referrals under the Treasury Offset Program to recover debts owed to the agency that are 10 years old and older pending a thorough review of our responsibility and discretion under the current law,” her statement read.
Mary Grice’s nearly $3,000 was returned.
Even at the time, though, those battling the SAA pointed out that the agency had not relinquished its stance that children could be held liable for the debts of their parents or forsworn their “right” to collect even 40-year old debts.
Now, just months later — you guessed it — the Social Security Administration is right back at it.
Mary Grice received a new letter asking, “Did you forget?” and demanding that she pay all the money the agency had just sent back to her, claiming she still owes the debt.
In court filings, the SSA argues that the distinction between overpayments paid to an individual and those paid to a parent for the benefit of that individual when a small child is a “baseless distinction.” The powerful bureaucracy asserts that Congress has granted it the awesome legal power to collect debts “as it sees fit.”
Incredibly, but completely in character, the Feds think Congress can trump the Constitution and centuries of common law, legalizing their right to simply take what they think they are entitled to from any American citizen by any means necessary
Three days after my mother passed away, she got her social security direct deposit. One day later, they too it back. Imagine if the government was half that efficient about tracking down illegal aliens.
I asked if she got social security within a week of signing up. No, I was told, she had to wait a month. Then why, I asked, did they take back a payment which was for the previous month.
I was similarly shocked after my mom passed and I called the SSA to tell them about her death. They reached into her bank account and took back the check that had been issued after she died.
Children are not responsible for the debt of deceased parents.
If Social Security came to me with such a demand, I’d tell them to stuff it.
Its indecent and beyond reprehensible. There is a statute of limitation on private debt.
But the law and common sense doesn’t apply to Social Security it seems.
I closed my father’s bank accounts when he died, assumed his assets and instructed Social Security to stop further payments to the bank.
I did my duty in protecting the taxpayers and my family’s good name.
If you are a tax paying American, you MUST make sure that when you file your taxes you owe just enough so that you will never receive a refund.
It is getting to be the point where most people should think about converting a good part of their financial assets to deposit in the First National Bank of Simmons Mattress Company.
Did you remember that SS pays at least one month in arrears? I.e., they owed him (his estate) a check after he passed....
That’s correct, there’s a waiting month to collect S.S. and when you die, your estate has to pay back, if you’ve received a check that month.
But they do send you a death benefit of $255.
Laws don’t matter to them, or the IRS. They attach the money and you can’t get it unless you sue them or get a Congressman/Senator involved.
The best process is to not let them have access to your funds in the first place, or make it difficult for their functionaries to find it.
Just one more reason why some guy who swims across the Rio Grande from Mexico and spends his entire lifetime here in the U.S. working for cash is going to be remembered as the last free man in America.
How did the SS determine who to go after? The Democrats learned how to use computers to punish their political enemies. I would look real hard at how they chose people to go after. Did they go after people in the inner city? I don’t trust our government to try and be fair anymore.
400K recipients, divided into $75 million? A whopping $187.50 each!
“If Social Security came to me with such a demand, I’d tell them to stuff it.”
They don’t come to you. They don’t warn you. They just take.
The ACA as originally written (I read dozens of pages) had access to your bank accounts and would sign you up automatically and deduct the payments without your input. That didn’t make the final cut, but the intent was there.
A friend’s bank told her they could not guarantee that they would ignore a demand from her insurance which she had attempted to cancel. She not only had to close her account but also change banks.
Can someone explain what this payment is?
“Another reason why tax deductions should always be taken so you either owe very little or are due very little in refund. I plan mine so I’m within $200 either way.”
I do the same! I wish others would, as well. We could STARVE THE BEAST...though I’m 100% positive they’d find another way to shank us!
“If you are a tax paying American, you MUST make sure that when you file your taxes you owe just enough so that you will never receive a refund.”
BUMP!
The Last Free Man! A point I never considered. More truth than many will admit.
Insofar as SS and IRS go, the phrase “root & branch” comes to mind with those “just following orders” someday being accountable,
They don’t even do that unless you are a surviving spouse or dependent. I was merely a taxpaying son so got nada.
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