Taking “Filial” Obligations to a Whole New (and Very Disturbing) Level: The Federal Government

George Washington Law Professor Naomi Cahn drew a direct line between our post earlier today about law review articles exploring various theories about “filial” or family obligations for support, and a chilling report from the front page of today’s Washington Post.  From the article by Marc Fisher, titled  “Social Security, Treasury Target Taxpayers for Their Parents’ Decades Old Debts:”

“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 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.”

Well, that certainly trumps any nursing home’s theory of family liability.  Our thanks to Naomi for the timely heads up.  The due process implications of the tax refund intercepts sound like a Constitutional Law exam problem in the making … or perhaps I’m just too close to exam-writing time myself.