If Your Parents Die Owing Money to the IRS, You May Have to Cover the Bill

Yesterday was Tax Day and so taxes are still fresh on our minds, but here’s some scary news that probably didn't even cross your mind as you filed your own taxes this year: if your parents were to die and if they happened to owe money to the government, the responsibility to pay up would fall on your shoulders. That's right, the IRS can and will come after you for the debts of your parents.

The United States Treasury Department has been intercepting the tax refunds of people who received over-payments of government benefits in the past. And here's the thing- it doesn’t matter how long ago the over-payments occurred or even if the people are still alive, which is where you could come into play.

Each year since 2011, hundreds of thousands of people who were expecting to receive a tax refund have instead received a letter informing them that a parent’s debt allowed the federal government to confiscate their refund check.

According to the Washington Post, the policy, which you might not have heard about since just now, was actually put into place in 2011 and by 2014, it had already taken $1.9 billion in tax refunds with $75 million of those refunds coming from debts that have existed for over 10 years.  The Washington Post says, "Social Security officials say that if children indirectly received assistance from public dollars paid to a parent, the children’s money can be taken, no matter how long ago any overpayment occurred."

[via Washington Post]