The Social Security Administration confiscated $75 million in tax refunds due to about 300,000 Americans without giving those taxpayers sufficient information to figure out why their money was being taken, according to a new report by the agency’s inspector general.

After The Washington Post reported last year on Social Security’s drive to collect decades-old debts from hundreds of thousands of people whose parents allegedly received overpayments, the agency temporarily halted the collections and the inspector general launched an investigation into the practice.

The review concludes that in more than half of the 300,000 cases, the letters Social Security sent to taxpayers informing them of debts were returned as undeliverable. In almost 8,000 of those cases, the government went ahead and confiscated tax refunds due to people who had never received any notice of a debt, the report said.

Even when taxpayers did receive the letters, “the information was insufficient for the debtor to recall the debt and the circumstances surrounding the debt,” according to the report by Inspector General Patrick O’Carroll Jr.

DEBTS DECADES OLD

In 73 percent of the cases, the debts being collected were between 21 and 40 years old, and many of the addresses Social Security used for the taxpayers were that old.

The inspector general said Social Security needs to do a better job of explaining to taxpayers how they came to owe the government money, but the report does not address the central complaint of a separate class-action lawsuit against the agency: whether it is fair or constitutional for the government to collect debts incurred by a taxpayer’s parent.

The report says Social Security operated within the law when it asked the Treasury Department to seize taxpayers’ tax refunds to pay off debts stemming from overpayments Social Security made more than a decade ago. The collections started after a single sentence was tucked into the farm bill in 2011 lifting the 10-year statute of limitations on debts to Uncle Sam.

In response to the inspector general’s report, Social Security pledged to resolve the address problems and said it would look into revising the notices to provide a better explanation of why the debts existed.

The agency told the inspector general it has not resumed collection efforts on the old debts and is still “exploring policy or legislative changes to limit the program for childhood beneficiaries.”

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