Is the Social Security Administration a rogue and lawless agency? Its persistent attempt to collect allegedly overpaid benefits from the children of beneficiaries decades after the checks were issued certainly leaves that impression.
It’s shocking, really, that a powerful federal agency would resort to confiscating tax returns from people who were kids when their parents received an overpayment and who had no say in how the money was spent.
And it’s even more alarming that the agency , and then, didn’t.
In fact, the agency seems to have doubled down, arguing in federal court that there is no law against what it is doing.
“They’re asking the court to be the first court in the United States to force a child to pay a debt incurred by the parents. It’s really quite disgusting,” said Robert Vogel, an attorney for taxpayers fighting the agency’s policy.
If the federal courts don’t feel they have a legal reason to stop the agency, then Congress should.
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