Its tax season and the SSA is, once again, aggressively intercepting the tax refunds of those who they claim have received an over payment of benefits. However, as most social security lawyers know full well, these attempts to collect old debts are not always fair. Just a few weeks ago the tax refund of a Mary Grice, a Maryland resident, was stopped because of an alleged over payment that someone in her family allegedly received 37 years ago when she was a minor.
One of the most troubling aspects about this case is that the SSA has not been able to identify who in Grice's family received the over payment. (Grice was 4 years old when the over payment was made.) Grice filed a lawsuit against SSA alleging that the government violated her due process rights by holding her responsible for a debt allegedly incurred under her father's Social Security number. It was about time someone had the guts and the resources to take the incompetent bureaucrats from the SSA to Federal Court!
In response to this and other scandalous stories of Social Security's outrageous attempts to collect old debts, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) have asked the SSA to stop its practice of intercepting federal and state tax refunds to cover overpayments that the agency says it made to families more than 10 years ago. “Grice and other families like hers are unfairly being held responsible for decades-old errors at the Social Security Administration — even though many of these taxpayers were children at the time the error was made,” Boxer and Mikulski wrote. “Too many of these families are now finding themselves trapped in a mess of paperwork and red tape.”
Thanks to Ms. Grice, her attorney Robert Vogel and, Senators Boxer and Mikulski for taking on this fight on behalf of all of those who are constantly abused by the arrogance and ineptitude of the Social Security Administration.
