Treasury Will No Longer Seize Tax Refunds To Satisfy Ancient Social Security Debts Of Relatives

     From Myinforms, whatever that is:

After three years of complaints and pressure from taxpayers, the federal government will stop seizing the tax refunds of Americans whose long-dead parents had incurred debts to Social Security many years earlier.

In an emergency message to its staff late Friday, the Treasury Department announced that it will immediately stop confiscating money from hundreds of thousands of people whose forebears had been overpaid by Social Security decades earlier.

The change, which applied only to debts from 2002 or earlier, follows Washington Post articles that chronicled the impact of the seizures on taxpayers who never knew that their parents had had debts to the government....

     Apparently, there was an article about this in the Washington Post but it's behind a paywall.

     The fact that this ever happened is a sign of just how bizarre things got after the GOP took over the House of Representatives. Overpayments, which were usually due to either mistakes that the Social Security Administration made or honest errors by claimants, were always conflated with fraud. The insistent demand from Congress was to do anything, literally anything, to collect these overpayments. Nothing was too extreme. Forty year old overpayments? Go all out to collect them. Don't worry about the fact that the agency lacks proof that an overpayment actually occurred decades ago. The person who was overpaid is dead? Just collect it from any relative of the person who was overpaid.

That Five Day Rule Isn't Being Implemented Uniformly

     An e-mail I received recently from another Social Security attorney:

Judges have been inconsistent with the application of the 5 day rule in my experience so far.

Judge _____ in ODAR Office A refused to consider records that arrived the day of hearing, despite my timely submitted 5 day notice.  I explained to the judge that the regs say that claimant must inform judge of evid not submitted before 5 biz days, and the regs do not require good cause showing for evid that the claimant has informed the judge 5 days before the hearing.  He told me that he feels (and he has spoken with other judges and they also feel) that the claimant needs to not only show good cause, but also provide documentation of good cause.  Basically, my explanation provided in the notice was not sufficient, he needed something to back up what I was saying.  He thinks that a fax confirmation of the med record request etc may be sufficient. 

He did allow a statement submitted by one of client’s providers, saying that he would do so because it is short and it would not delay decision. He did comment that it was not mentioned in my notice.  (I did not include it in my notice because that statement did not exist when I submitted my notice, it was dated about 3 days before hearing.)

He added that in another case just prior, he refused to look at new evidence submitted after the 5 day mark even though there were information in the records hurting the claimant’s case.

Another judge in ODAR Office B also seemed to think a good cause determination needs to be made despite 5 day notice.  A 3^rd judge in ODAR Office B not only allowed me additional time to submit the evid mentioned in my 5 day notice, but also allowed me to submit other evidence posthearing (claimant told me of additional treatment the date of hearing). 

     Social Security hastily drafted these proposed regulations. They completely ignored comments made about the proposed regulations and adopted them in haste. Hey, if attorneys oppose them, they must be good, right? The agency gave its staff no meaningful explanation, much less training on the regulations. No one should be surprised when Administrative Law Judges start interpreting the regulations in ways never imagined by those who drafted them. What is happening is exactly what I expected. I expect that all of us who represent claimants were expecting this.

Trump Proposal Coming On SSI Children's Benefits?

     The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has put out a piece on the importance of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits for disabled children. I take it as a sign that they believe that Trump budget proposal will call for ending these benefits. By the way, if that is the proposal, take it seriously but don't get too excited. It wouldn't save much money and would be very difficult to get through the Senate. Think about it. Taking benefits away from disabled kids; how popular would that be, really?

New Acting Associate Commissioner For External Affairs

     From a recent announcement:

We are very pleased to announce that Social Security has a new Acting Associate Commissioner for External Affairs.

Robert (Bob) Patterson comes to Social Security with a wealth of experience in communications and public engagement.

He has served as Speechwriter and Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families with the Department of Health and Human Services, and Senior Speechwriter with the U.S. Small Business Administration. Most recently, Bob served as Vice President for Government Relations at the U.S. Business and Industry Council. His background also includes a wide range of experience in the private sector and academia as a policy expert, professor and op-ed contributor.

About $200 Per Case

     From a press release:

David Black Daugherty, 81, of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves of the Eastern District of Kentucky to an information charging him with two counts of receiving illegal gratuities. Sentencing is set for Aug. 25, 2017. 

Daugherty was an administrative law judge at the Social Security hearing office in Huntington, West Virginia (Huntington Hearing Office) for more than 20 years, where his primary responsibility was to adjudicate disability claims on behalf of the SSA. According to admissions made as part of his guilty plea, from November 2004 to April 2011, Daugherty accepted more than $609,000 in cash payments, total, in more than approximately 3,100 cases from Social Security disability lawyer, Eric Christopher Conn, of Pikeville, Kentucky, for awarding disability benefits to claimants represented by Conn. Furthermore, in an effort to conceal the source of these cash payments, Daugherty divided cash deposits into various bank branches and accounts, he admitted.

Daugherty admitted that he sought out Conn’s cases pending with the Huntington Hearing Office, contacted Conn and told him what type of medical evidence to submit in support of disability findings and then awarded benefits to claimants represented by Conn without holding hearings. As a result, Conn ultimately received at least $7.1 million in representative fees from the SSA, and Daugherty further obligated the SSA to pay more than $550 million in lifetime benefits to claimants, according to the plea.

Top Baby Names Of 2016

	Male name	Female name
1	Noah	Emma
2	Liam	Olivia
3	William	Ava
4	Mason	Sophia
5	James	Isabella
6	Benjamin	Mia
7	Jacob	Charlotte
8	Michael	Abigail
9	Elijah	Emily
10	Ethan	Harper

Source: Social Security Administration

An Exit Interview With Carolyn Colvin

     Before leaving office, then Acting Commisioner Carolyn Colvin sat down for an interview with McKinsey and Company, a huge and highly influential consulting company. 

     Colvin has had a long and distinguished career as a public servant. She made the best of a bad funding situation at Social Security. She has a lot to be proud of. However, this interview does not improve my opinion of her. It's crammed with endless Dilbertesque management buzzwords. If you're touting Vision 2025 as a major achievement, one that truly effected change, you've lost touch with reality. Vision 2025 was of no consequence at the time it was issued and has already been forgotten because it was nothing more than vapid generalities.
     I'll say this for her. If she kept a listed landline after becoming Commissioner, I don't know whether to be impressed or just amazed.

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