Treasury target taxpayers for their parents’ decades-old debts, page 1

Good afternoon ATS,

I came across this wee gem and well....just had to share. It seems that Uncle Sam is a bit strapped for cash and getting rather creative about how they can make up for the massive bailouts to the banks....huge subsidies and tax breaks for corporations.

Before you read this...take a deep breath.

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.

How old a debt you might ask?

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.

WOW!! How the *bleep* can this be legal....????

The Treasury Department has intercepted $1.9 billion in tax refunds already this year — $75 million of that on debts delinquent for more than 10 years, said Jeffrey Schramek, assistant commissioner of the department’s debt management service. The aggressive effort to collect old debts started three years ago — the result of a single sentence tucked into the farm bill lifting the 10-year statute of limitations on old debts to Uncle Sam.

Source

TYT also did a segment on this story....

I cannot believe that they would do this....

What do you think ATS??