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Interesting article that a friend posted on the good old Facebook:

To quote the important parts of the article:

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 article then goes on to make the case that children are never responsible for the debts of their parents.

I found the article pretty interesting, and for me it raised the question of who the debt really belonged to.

Would survivor benefits be "her money" even though it was paid to her parents? Seems like it could be similar to child support payments, which are payments that belong to the child even though they are paid to the other parent. So if the benefits were her benefits, even though they were paid to the parents, would debts from over-payment be her debts as well even though the over-payments were send to the parents?

It seems like that would explain why no debt was collected from the siblings because they would not be responsible for her debt either. Collecting debts owed by parents from the children would be wrong, but this is an interesting case that seems like it has a very gray area about who the debt really belonged to. If a child gets money, and that money is given to the parents, does it becomes the parents money (and liability if there was a mistake) or are parents just caretakers of that money and does the money (and potential liability) remain the responsibility of the child?

It is certainly a very interesting case...

Perhaps she was the eldest and was over 18 by the time the benefits were received.

It still seems very sharp practice, though.

Luckily the USA has the rule of law, so she will be able to defend herself in the courts.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Perhaps she was the eldest and was over 18 by the time the benefits were received.

I think she is the second oldest, but she was over 18 when they were received.

It still seems very sharp practice, though.

Agreed.

Luckily the USA has the rule of law, so she will be able to defend herself in the courts.

Very true, sounds like she got a lawyer that took the case.

Was it pro bono? This sounds like it could get expensive, since I don't think the government would want to lose a precident with hundreds of thousands of others that could possibly take this to court.

Relapse wrote:
Was it pro bono? This sounds like it could get expensive, since I don't think the government would want to lose a precident with hundreds of thousands of others that could possibly take this to court.

I would imagine it was. I could see something like this going class action if he gets his foot in the door.

Can you "class action" the government? Er...I highly doubt that.

 d-usa wrote:

Relapse wrote:
Was it pro bono? This sounds like it could get expensive, since I don't think the government would want to lose a precident with hundreds of thousands of others that could possibly take this to court.

I would imagine it was. I could see something like this going class action if he gets his foot in the door.

Definitely true. If I read the article correctly, the statute of limitations on taxes from years past has been thrown out in order to get this action in play. I wonder what other avenues the government will take with this new power if I am not mistaken.

 Frazzled wrote:
Can you "class action" the government? Er...I highly doubt that.

Honestly don't know.

If you can't we will just pretend my previous comment never happened....

Well in normal law, a person is not responsible for the obligations of another person, unless they (legally) consent to it.

I think the moral of the story is Watch the Skies!

That is a pretty dubious claim the gvt is making there, though.

"Someone in your family received to much money by our mistake 35+ years ago, and we want you to pay us money for our mistake made to someone else."

I mean, isn't there a limitation on how far back something like this can be claimed?
I know there is in the Netherlands.

The government may come to regret it as it clearly shows they believe mistakes from 37 years ago can be pursued

so if you think the government might owe you (or your family) money from long, long ago it looks like you can now go after it

(I bet there were a lot of folk who were too proud to apply for benefits they might have been owed.. now their kids may be able claim it from beyond the grave!)

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Luckily the USA has the rule of law, so she will be able to defend herself in the courts.

97% conviction rate against it's citizens...

She stands no chance.

Bran Dawri wrote:
That is a pretty dubious claim the gvt is making there, though.

"Someone in your family received to much money by our mistake 35+ years ago, and we want you to pay us money for our mistake made to someone else."

I mean, isn't there a limitation on how far back something like this can be claimed?
I know there is in the Netherlands.

In the article it says the government eliminated the statute of limitations on debts. I clicked it and ended up reading something that appeared to be about agriculture.
I think I am going to study this out when I get more time.

dereksatkinson wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Luckily the USA has the rule of law, so she will be able to defend herself in the courts.

97% conviction rate against it's citizens...

She stands no chance.

Really?

Even Japan has only 98%.

This is ridiculous...

The “debts” here are overpayments of Social Security benefits... a product of SSA’s own admittederrors. The parents who received them might not have even realized they were getting money they weren’t supposed to have.

But somehow the kid owes this money back.

Looking back on this... this is now occuring because the farm bill that passed in 2011(I think) lifted the 10-year statute of limitations on debts owed to the feds.


I read into this from this tweet:

Isn’t holding children responsible for their parents’ retirement debts the governing model of the Democratic Party?

Okay... it's very much so a cheap shot... but, I lolz....

I think the title is misleading, technically its a debt that *she* incurred, no? Social security paid the survivor benefits out to her (unless they did it differently back then, I know I got social security retirement benefits from my father until I was 18) and evidently overpaid her.

 whembly wrote:
on this... this is now occuring because the farm bill that passed in 2011(I think) lifted the 10-year statute of limitations on debts owed to the feds.


I read into this from this tweet:

Isn’t holding children responsible for their parents’ retirement debts the governing model of the Democratic Party?

Okay... it's very much so a cheap shot... but, I lolz....

This is pretty much the only real question in all of this for me.

Is it really the parent's debt?

If the money is paid to the children, via a caregiver, do the debts belong to the children or the caregiver?

That's the main part of the case that has me thinking.

Relapse wrote:

In the article it says the government eliminated the statute of limitations on debts. I clicked it and ended up reading something that appeared to be about agriculture.
I think I am going to study this out when I get more time.

Even so, to claim the money back from someone who doesn't even owe you the debt is dubious, at best, and by my standards, simply wrong.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I think the title is misleading, technically its a debt that *she* incurred, no? Social security paid the survivor benefits out to her (unless they did it differently back then, I know I got social security retirement benefits from my father until I was 18) and evidently overpaid her.

See, that is what has me scratching my head. I assume that the checks were issued in the parent's name, but did the money belong to the parents or the children?

My wife gets social security disability benefits. She worked for the USPS for a long time, and became disabled due to the backbreaking nature of her job*, and then as soon as she put in for light duty, they fired her. It's a sordid story. Anyway, they denied her claims and sent us to Social Security disability. They also denied her claims.

We decided to lawyer up. The lawyer told us that this is a standard tactic; they deny a huge percentage of claims regardless of how valid they are because x percentage of people will not ever litigate anyway. It turned out he was right (at least in hour case). As soon as he sent them a letter requesting stuff and stating he was representing her, we went o a single hearing and they rolled over like my dog when I'm holding a meaty bone and paid the claim as well as for back pay for how long it took us to decide to lawyer up.

Once that was straightened out, Social Security has not been a problem at all. She's re-certified twice, no issues.

So, I know that was a cool story bro but in my experience, social security will definitely try to pull some shady action if they think they can get away with it.

Later on, my wife got a class action notification. The USPS was settling a class action of employees that they had wrongly fired when they should have been on light duty. She wound up getting a small payout from that as well. So, yes, you can lodge a class action against the government, assuming USPS counts as the government (she was a federal employee, certainly).

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.

Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and call bs on that one. I'm not throwing shade on D, it's a quote from the article - and the whole thing reeks of one side of a story and typical, lazy journalist no research. I'd love to see that court order "someone, we don't know who lol so lets take this woman's money?" Get real.

I would buy that the money is benefits due the deceased which are collectable by the survivor, and having been overpaid, are now no longer being paid until the error is balanced out; but that's obviously a far cry from seizing tax returns. Clearly there is more to this than has been presented. I'd like to see this story develop.


*my wife worked hard and trained for a specific role and passed the test for it, which was hard - some specialized sorting thing. She loved it. Then they closed that plant and her new job was pushing 2 ton mail cages around all night. I mention this because when I say it was a backbreaking job, some will think "well, you knew what it was going in, right" - that's not how it was.

 Ouze wrote:
My wife gets social security disability benefits. She worked for the USPS for a long time, and became disabled due to the backbreaking nature of her job*, and then as soon as she put in for light duty, they fired her. It's a sordid story. Anyway, they denied her claims and sent us to Social Security disability. They also denied her claims.

We decided to lawyer up. The lawyer told us that this is a standard tactic; they deny a huge percentage of claims regardless of how valid they are because x percentage of people will not ever litigate anyway. It turned out he was right (at least in hour case). As soon as he sent them a letter requesting stuff and stating he was representing her, we went o a single hearing and they rolled over like my dog when I'm holding a meaty bone and paid the claim as well as for back pay for how long it took us to decide to lawyer up.

Once that was straightened out, Social Security has not been a problem at all. She's re-certified twice, no issues.

So, I know that was a cool story bro but in my experience, social security will definitely try to pull some shady action if they think they can get away with it.

Later on, my wife got a class action notification. The USPS was settling a class action of employees that they had wrongly fired when they should have been on light duty. She wound up getting a small payout from that as well. So, yes, you can lodge a class action against the government, assuming USPS counts as the government (she was a federal employee, certainly).

Isn't the USPS some weird mix of "government" and "private company"?

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.

Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and call bs on that one. I'm not throwing shade on D, it's a quote from the article - and the whole thing reeks of one side of a story and typical, lazy journalist no research. I'd love to see that court order "someone, we don't know who lol so lets take this woman's money?" Get real.

The article in the OP is an opinion piece that links to another article. It probably would have been better for me to link to that article instead and leave the opinion piece be. But It does get people talking

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Luckily the USA has the rule of law, so she will be able to defend herself in the courts.

Sarcasm noted.

Isn't the USPS some weird mix of "government" and "private company"?

The United States Postal Service is a corporation owned by the Federal Government. I think it used to get government money (it is one of the few agencies explicitly put into existence by the Constitution) but it is today a separate entity that runs on its own profits.

 LordofHats wrote:

Isn't the USPS some weird mix of "government" and "private company"?

The United States Postal Service is a corporation owned by the Federal Government. I think it used to get government money (it is one of the few agencies explicitly put into existence by the Constitution) but it is today a separate entity that runs on its own profits.

*Allegedly*

(it's been a while since we used that I think...)

What does the "instructions/requirement" say to receive the benefit? If they were still collecting after expiration into a account that might have her name on it then its on her regardless. Still though I wonder why SSA did not have a automatic cut off once the teens hit adulthood

 d-usa wrote:


Isn't the USPS some weird mix of "government" and "private company"?

It's an independent agency of the US government and an independent establishment. That first part simply means that they're a government agency free from the federal executive departments, which is those headed by a Cabinet secretary, and thus are independent of presidential control despite being part of the executive branch. The independent establishment part is due to is no longer being the Cabinet-level Post Office Department thanks to the Postal Reorganization Act of 1971.

In addition, they haven't directly received tax money since the 80's aside from subsidies for overseas and disabled voters costs.

Well, I did some quick googling and found a less murky example of a successful class action against the federal government. There are others but question answered I think.

It looks like the gov is backing down for the moment on this horse gak debt collection. It appears that someone who isn't stepping up to admit to it, pushed a small item allowing this into an agriculture bill.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/14/social-security-administration-suspends-program-to-recover-money-from-adult/

Presumably you can look up the US equivalent of Hansard to find out who put the item into the bill.

Isn't this the point of probate? It is basically the final window to 'claim your debts'. If you miss your window to settle claims, the property has been distributed, game over.

The time to have brought this up would have been when the Wife who was paid benefits had died. Legitimate Over-payment could have been taken out of the estate before distribution (if there was anything there to get) If they were doing this part of a probate situation, I could see a valid claim.

I thinks he will be able to win this... Gov missed getting their money from dead people twice.