My firm has received a child care credit payment on one of our former clients. I've asked around and three other attorneys I know have also received these payments by mistake. Who knows how many more there may be? The payments came from the IRS.
We don't know exactly what to do other than to put the money in escrow for now. We'd like to just pay the money to our former clients, the ones who probably should have received the money, but that may not be safe. Our experience with Social Security is that if they pay us money that should have gone to the client, they eventually bill us for the overpayment and they don't care in the least that the money has been paid over to the client. The opening letter from Social Security in these cases -- I repeat, their opening letter -- demands that we repay the money immediately accompanied by the threat to take away our right to represent claimants. I've received even more belligerent letters after reminding them that I repaid their money long before they ever billed me. Given this experience, we don't want to pay the money over to the clients but if we just send a check to the IRS, will they know how to credit it? Will the incorrect payments keep coming month after month?
I have no idea how extensive this problem is or whether the mistake is at Social Security or the IRS but there is some degree of problem here. The IRS and Social Security need to get together and figure this out.
3 comments:
It is a IRS issue unrelated to SSA at all. I had mine going to one joint account for me and my wife when all of a sudden the IRS switched and started depositing it in my personal account. There was no warning and honestly I have no clue how they even found that personal account as I never use it for anything other than savings.
I’m my case, it’s not so bad because it’s still going to the same household but it’s still very strange. IRS seems to have some issues but even working for SSA, I have no luck getting through to them.
Deposit the incorrect payment into your law office trust account and then wait for instructions from the government as to the method for returning the mistaken payment. Never send a payment back to the government until you have received specific instructions for return of the mistaken payment. Until then, let the payment remain in your law office trust account and identify that deposit as being related to that mistaken payment.
We also received a payment for one of our former clients. it sits in my escrow account waiting for instructions to arrive for its return.
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