Strange refund received

[Jesse]

This has been a strange year.

Have client that owes back child support so he expected a partial intercept. Instead he received more than the anticipated refund, I checked and double checked my numbers, the RRC - which was zero, amounts withheld I see nothing to create a larger refund. I looked up the refund on the IRS site and it warns:

Your refund may be reduced to pay a past due obligation such as child support, another federal agency debt, or state income tax. If this applies to you, the Financial Management Service, who issues IRS refunds, will send you a notice informing you of any offset they have made. The details of the debt are not provided to the IRS. Please do not call us to inquire about the details because we will not be able to answer your questions. Instead, direct any questions you have about the offset or debt to the agency identified on the notice.

The amount of refund issued according is $200 more than what was on his tax return????

[Nashville]

Warning does not apply

Obviously the warning on the IRS site does not apply to overpayments. I would ignore it and continue my research.

Contrary to what the warning says, the IRS is fully capable of identifying the sources and amounts of offsets by various agencies. If you stop and think about it, the very existence of an offset means that it came from somewhere and had to be quantified at some point. IRS simply does not want to put up with the expense of phone support and designing a information retrieval routine whereby they could inquire.

Amazing when they send you a notice of taxes due, they can identify the unreported income and amounts. This is a cop out.

Are they not even identifying the agency? I can fully understand them not wanting to get involved with details of how the debt was incurred.

[DTS]

Jesse

In the past, I remember Sandy and others have posted about their clients receiving checks in error. After doing a check, as you have, find nothing wrong on their end, they have told the client to not cash it until such time they are sure nothing is coming that will bite the client.

D

[Jesse]

The strange thing is he was expecting some of the monies to be intercepted. He had a new baby December of 2007 and was unemployed for a bit so fell behind on the child support.

With the additional child tax credit and refund of w/holdings his refund was $2,900, and again, he knew or expected $500+/- of the refund would be intercepted.

But instead he receives a check for $3,100 with the possible offset notice. Needing the money I told him to cash the check and expect to pay back approx $700. Just really bizarre !

[ChEAr$]

One of my clients

This has been a strange year.

Have client that owes back child support so he expected a partial intercept. Instead he received more than the anticipated refund, I checked and double checked my numbers, the RRC - which was zero, amounts withheld I see nothing to create a larger refund. I looked up the refund on the IRS site and it warns:

Your refund may be reduced to pay a past due obligation such as child support, another federal agency debt, or state income tax. If this applies to you, the Financial Management Service, who issues IRS refunds, will send you a notice informing you of any offset they have made. The details of the debt are not provided to the IRS. Please do not call us to inquire about the details because we will not be able to answer your questions. Instead, direct any questions you have about the offset or debt to the agency identified on the notice.

The amount of refund issued according is $200 more than what was on his tax return????

is in similar situation. Here's a fellow expecting refund of $8,700 something, but received only about $3200! That same notice from FMS suggests that that know something we don't. And that includes client, who is single, doesn't owe back taxes, never went to college, never married, no back child support issues atall. He'll just have to wait for the
explanation.
So i get the impression something up there is out of kilter.

[ChEAr$]

It's not the IRS

Obviously the warning on the IRS site does not apply to overpayments. I would ignore it and continue my research.

Contrary to what the warning says, the IRS is fully capable of identifying the sources and amounts of offsets by various agencies. If you stop and think about it, the very existence of an offset means that it came from somewhere and had to be quantified at some point. IRS simply does not want to put up with the expense of phone support and designing a information retrieval routine whereby they could inquire.

Amazing when they send you a notice of taxes due, they can identify the unreported income and amounts. This is a cop out.

Are they not even identifying the agency? I can fully understand them not wanting to get involved with details of how the debt was incurred.

it's the Financial management service/system, a part of U S Treasury which administers
offsets. IRS has nothing to do with it, except IF the offset were due to a federal tax debt. but there
are many other possiblities having nothing to do with IRS.