Sins of the Father: IRS Style

In an alarming story of government overreach and lack of accountability and transparency, the Washington Post reports a story, "Social Security, Treasury target taxpayers for their parents' decades-old debts," by Marc Fisher (4/10/14).  People are finding their tax refunds are intercepted to recompense for overpayments by Social Security going back decades, sometimes to when the person was a child and the payments were to their parents.  No proof is given that the person benefited from the overpayment.  One example given is for a woman who is charged for a nearly 40 year old overpayment, back to the time she when she was four.  Neither of her two surviving siblings, one older and one younger, were charged.

It's all because someone put a sentence into a farm bill doing away with the statue of limitations on recovering overpayments.  I really think there should be a way to find out which of our elected officials added that sentence (or which lobbyists actually wrote it and has someone add it to the bill).

This is scary.

Update:  On Monday the Social Security Administration said it would stop this practice (see "social security stops trying to collect on old debts by seizing tax refunds," by Marc Fisher 4/14).  I will want to know who started it.