An Iowa teen lost his dad and got survivor's benefits to stay afloat. 30 years later, the IRS says it wants $10,000 back

An Iowa man and his family were shocked when, instead of getting the tax refund they were expecting this year, the IRS told them it was claiming their refund for a past debt. The debt? An overpayment of Social Security survivor benefits from 30 years ago, which now totals almost $8,000. Days later, it revised that number up to $10,000.

Christopher Storm was a 17-year-old high school student who worked at Pizza Hut when his father passed away. He told KMTV 3 News Now Omaha that he received Social Security survivor benefits, which amounted to about $500 a month, until he turned 18 (1).

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He also received a final, $3,000 lump sum payment when he turned 18, and then the benefits stopped, the report says.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) says that in 1996, Storm was overpaid. Storm says that when he and his wife, Amy, got the news their refund was being clawed back, they were “frantically just trying to figure out what was going on.”

Keith Buzzard, an attorney from Council Bluffs, Iowa, told KMTV 3 that an overpayment case like Storm’s is not unusual.

“It is fairly common. I think in any given year, there’s like a million of these letters that go out to people,” he told KMTV 3.

Buzzard said the reason for the overpayment claim could have been that Storm was working at Pizza Hut at the time, and perhaps had earned too much money under eligibility rules.

Storm told KMTV 3 that he and Amy had planned to use their tax refund to make home repairs.

The money owing “may not seem real substantial to some people. It feels substantial to us,” Storm told KMTV 3. “To have them say, you know, 30 years later, ‘Hey, that was an overpayment,’ definitely feels very unjust.”

What happens if Social Security accidentally overpays you

Since 2011, there has been no statute of limitations on the SSA collecting benefit overpayments (2). According to Illinois Legal Aid Online (ILAO), overpayments can happen because your marital status or living situation changes, if you’re no longer disabled, or you earn more income than you had estimated (3). Notices typically state that you have to repay the overpayment within 30 days.

If you want to try and fight the overpayment, you can either ask for a waiver or ask for a reconsideration. You can also ask for a repayment plan if you want to simply pay back the money, the ILAO says.

You can request a waiver if you don’t contest the fact that you were overpaid, but the overpayment was not your fault and you cannot afford to repay it (4).

The ILAO says that to get a waiver, you can’t be at fault for the overpayment, and the repayment to the SSA “would mean you cannot afford housing, food, clothes or medical expenses,” or “paying the SSA back would be unfair for another reason.”

If you think there was an error and you weren’t actually overpaid, or that the amount owed is incorrect, you can appeal the decision by filing a request for reconsideration (5).

If your request for either option is denied, and you have to repay the SSA, you can request a repayment plan. The ILAO says repayment plans typically see the amount paid back within 12 months and no longer than 60 months.

Bureaucratic nightmare that feels ‘impossible to resolve’

For Christopher Storm, so far his Social Security overpayment saga isn’t going well. In a follow-up report on his situation, KMTV 3 reported that since the original report on Storm’s situation, the SSA changed the claim amount from nearly $8,000 to more than $10,000 (6).

“It feels nearly impossible to try to get this resolved without just paying the money back,” Storm told KMTV 3 in the follow-up.

A small solace for Storm has been that his story resonated with people across the country, KMTV 3 said, but he also felt that it was “troubling that this is impacting so many people.”

Since telling his story, Storm has heard from other Americans who were in the same situation, but owed even more money, the report said.

“It’s sad. Something should happen. Something needs to get better,” Storm told KMTV 3. “And I know there’s no perfect solution and it can’t happen overnight. But I really wish that someone would hear this. Someone would be able to take it wherever it needs to go and get some real change.”