
US seizing tax refunds of children over parents' debt - codegeek
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101576080
======
epistasis
This is a terribly written article, borderline incomprehensible. The first
linked article is much more clear:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/social-security-
treas...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/social-security-treasury-
target-hundreds-of-thousands-of-taxpayers-for-parents-old-
debts/2014/04/10/74ac8eae-bf4d-11e3-bcec-b71ee10e9bc3_story.html?hpid=z1)

~~~
magicalist
Considerably more clear. For some reason the linked article also keeps
changing font size, like a badly copy-pasted email.

The money quote, for anyone wondering how they can collect debt on people's
children:

 _" The Federal Trade Commission, on its Web site, advises Americans that
“family members typically are not obligated to pay the debts of a deceased
relative from their own assets.” But Social Security officials say that if
children indirectly received assistance from public dollars paid to a parent,
the children’s money can be taken, no matter how long ago any overpayment
occurred."_

That seems like very tenuous legal theory, as it seems like it could apply to
_any_ debt the parent accrued, at least while they had dependents.

I'm curious if this has gone through the courts before, but unfortunately this
seems to be in one of those legal loopholes of civil cases, that you don't
have a right to defend yourself in court before they take money from your
refund, and in order to bring suit, you have to prove you have standing, which
most people don't have for decades old debts of their parents...

------
hippich
Slightly unrelated:

So I am foreigner living here with greencard for just few year, so I might
miss something. After filing my fifth tax return this year I was wondering -
why I need to spend an evening at all doing copy/paste from paper forms I
receive in the mail, when IRS receives same forms? I.e. why IRS can't just
send me a bill or a check if they already have all numbers? I understand there
might be some issues with self-employed people, but I think majority's income
is reported on W-2 or 1099 forms. And for minority who is not part of these
reporting could be required to go with some additional calculation.

~~~
maxerickson
The tax preparation industry has more lobbyists than you (and I) do.

stronglikedan has a fair point with deductible expenses, but they could send a
prepared statement to anyone who took the standard deduction in the previous
year. Or they could send prepared statements to everyone, with some mechanism
for adjusting the deductions (which should still be a big simplification).

Edit: It probably also makes sense to just let people change anything on the
statement; it shouldn't matter, but I think there are lots of people that
would find that allowance reassuring.

~~~
epistasis
Yes, this is purely a political problem rather than a technical problem.

The other issue is that taxes are so politicized that there will undoubtedly
be a contingent of congresspeople that think the hassle of taxes is a feature
of the system rather than a bug.

~~~
hga
This book goes into quite some detail about how our tax code and it's frequent
changes, or threats to do so, are a finely tuned instrument of _Extortion: How
Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets_
[http://www.amazon.com/Extortion-Politicians-Extract-Money-
Po...](http://www.amazon.com/Extortion-Politicians-Extract-Money-
Pockets/dp/0544103343/)

Quite a bit more, as well. Did you know that a Congresscritter can set up a
"leadership PAC", and spend the money on anything he wants? I've been
following this sort of thing since the early '70s (sic, late grade school and
junior high, then again that was the Watergate period), but I didn't know
that....

------
coldcode
Why is this here? This is nothing a thinly veiled political rant which creates
an impression without any actual evidence. Find a real story with facts and
maybe it's interesting.

