Jul
24
2012
By Guest (not verified)
About 11 years ago I applied for social security benefits at age 62. A few weeks ago I received a letter informing me that I have been overpaid because of a mistake on benefits I was due and as a result I owe Social Security over 11, 000 dollars and my benefits will be stopped for about 18 months so they can get it back.
Is there a statute of limitations for the SS to collect from their error.
Also, I hve paid income tax on 85 percent of the payments or some 3,000. on this money they say should not have been paid.
They said I can appeal, buy that is just having another social security employee review.
Is there any recourse to all this?
Thanks for any help. Lynn
Overpayment and statute of limitations
First, regarding any statute of limitations question, this likely will vary depending on the situation and possibly even the state. For example, see the following case where Social Security could not collect an overpayment because the local statute of limitation for filing a claim against an estate has expired.
https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/1506705054
Regardless of the situation, it's probably important that you do not make a payment yourself nor acknowledge you "owe" money as doing so may remove any limitation. See the following excerpt :
http://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/hallex/I-05/I-5-4-64.html
Here is information on the appeals process :
http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10041.html
As far as the taxes, you may be able to file an amended tax return for those years, but this is beyond the scope of this web site.