I live in Michigan and since I had a lousy lawyer and a worse judge when my case was established and since I had no idea I even had a child my support case was started with an arrearage of over 11k. My daughter was 2.5 then shes now six. The state of Michigan has done all kinds of nasty things to me since the start of the case. They have threatend me bullied me and cost me thousands in lawyer fees. Keep in mind please that I have ALWAYS payed my support since the order was established. They have seased my bank account several times they have taken my rights to have a passport they have talked about taking my driving rights they have tryed taking a car that I had payed off. I have in addition to paying my normal support also payed extra towards arrearage always without fail. I have appealed and to the Misdu and been rejected more times then I can count. I am now out of work and have been for 6 months and still I pay my normal support. I have in the past years gotten my tax refunds back. This year I got my state back but no sign of my federal. Is there a reason the state would be so screwed up that they would send my state refund and take my federal. Understandably I think I could really use the 800.00 I was due back this year. I do not want to call my FOC case worker and complain on the far chance I will still get my federal refund back but has anyone else had this type of issue?

Don't feel bad i live in michigan too and my fiance was getting 700.00 back and the foc took it because he had a balance of 900.00. They suck I know.

I live in Michigan and since I had a lousy lawyer and a worse judge when my case was established and since I had no idea I even had a child my support case was started with an arrearage of over 11k. My daughter was 2.5 then shes now six. The state of Michigan has done all kinds of nasty things to me since the start of the case. They have threatend me bullied me and cost me thousands in lawyer fees. Keep in mind please that I have ALWAYS payed my support since the order was established. They have seased my bank account several times they have taken my rights to have a passport they have talked about taking my driving rights they have tryed taking a car that I had payed off. I have in addition to paying my normal support also payed extra towards arrearage always without fail. I have appealed and to the Misdu and been rejected more times then I can count. I am now out of work and have been for 6 months and still I pay my normal support. I have in the past years gotten my tax refunds back. This year I got my state back but no sign of my federal. Is there a reason the state would be so screwed up that they would send my state refund and take my federal. Understandably I think I could really use the 800.00 I was due back this year. I do not want to call my FOC case worker and complain on the far chance I will still get my federal refund back but has anyone else had this type of issue?
To find out if your IRS refund is being taken you can call the Treasury Offset Program at 1-800-304-3107 (thank you Whyte Noise) just follow the prompts.

Did the state CSE send you a letter telling you that they put in for an offset? By law, they have to, so if you didn't get one, demand that they prove they sent one.

If the refund is offset you will first recieve a letter from the US Treasury Dept. it will tell you the amount and who it's being sent to. Then you'll recieve a letter from the state telling you that they have recieved it, and that you'll have blank number of days to file an injured spouse form.

There isn't much you can do about what has already happened, however, here are some suggestions on how to protect yourself in the future-as long as you ARE making all payments as court ordered :

If you are married and your wife worked she can file an injured spouse form to get her portion of the tax refund.

Adjust the witholding on your W-4 so that the least amount possible will be withheld for taxes.

Do NOT keep any money in a bank account with your name on it, this includes a joint account.

If your paycheck is direct deposited into your account, the day it is credited, withdraw it and put it into your wife's account or just keep cash.

Just an FYI- one of the ways that the whole CS system is screwed up is that retroactive CS (the amount ordered at time of original order dating back to BEFORE the order) is treated the same as a CSarrearage (that which was ALREADY court ordered but not paid). Legally they are 2 different things, but CSE treats them the same no matter what the laws say. I know that in Florida the statutes AND case law both show that retro is not the same and SHOULD not have the same enforcement, but CSE does it anyway.

The only thing you can do is to try to protect yourself as much as possible while you are paying off the retro, and then celebrate when it's finally paid off.
Xena :)

Another good resource is http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/ click on Federal and Administrative Offsets and the on FAQs.