Wondering Where Your Tax Refund Might Be? Check Your Student Loan Debt

By now millions of taxpayers have already filed their returns and have received their refunds. Still, there are others who are waiting for that check to show up in their account. For some, that wait can be very difficult and even cause a little anxiety. In most cases, there’s no need to worry. Just give it enough time and the IRS should be sending your refund soon. On the other hand, for some people who owe money on their student loans, the news might not be so good.

Several taxpayers are discovering this year that the refund they were expecting to get has instead been allocated for something else: to pay off their student loan debt. While this may come as a surprise to many, the law allows the Department of Education to take your tax refund if your student loan debt is in default. They can do this by using the Treasury Offset Program, which allows federal payments you would have otherwise received, to be taken and used to pay off debts to federal agencies.

However, according to the law, anyone who has a loan in default should first receive a warning that his or her tax refund could be used for paying down that student loan debt. In addition, if you do lose part or all of your refund, you can contest the decision. However, in order to win your protest essentially you have to prove that your student loan is not actually in default.

Posted in
Armin Tahmasbi, Encapsulate

Armin Tahmasbi | Encapsulate

I’m a young entrepreneur and a Ph.D. candidate in Biomedical Engineering program at the University of Connecticut, working on “Drug Delivery Systems, Self-Assembled Nanoparticles & Microfluidic Devices”, in Storrs, CT, US. I’m working in Self-Assembled Functional Nanomaterials Laboratory, under the supervision of Prof. Mu-Ping Nieh on “Drug Delivery Systems for cancer therapy”. We’re developing a universal platform for encapsulating and smart delivery of a wide range of drug molecules and

Spencer Jones, Lineus Medical

Spencer Jones | Lineus Medical

Spencer worked for 3 years in direct patient care as a Certified Nursing Assistant, Licensed Practical Nurse, and as a Registered Nurse. Frustrated with the inefficiencies plaguing the healthcare system, he was determined to play a role in improving the delivery of healthcare. In 2014, Spencer won the annual ARK Challenge, an Arkansas based business accelerator. The product he developed was a dual lumen peripheral IV called the BVAD, which focuses on painless and uncontaminated blood draws.

Adeel Malik

Adeel Malik | CEO of Clearstep

While studying finance and neurobiology in undergrad, Adeel spent his time doing neuro-immunology research at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, contributing to several academic publications. After undergrad, Adeel was a strategy & analytics consultant with Accenture for several years where he worked with some of the largest institutions in healthcare across pharma, health tech, health systems, and retail clinics. Adeel’s skills in healthcare analytics, operations, sales, and his breadth of experience

Yael Katz, BrainCheck

Yael Katz | How BrainCheck is Democratizing Cognitive Health

Dr. Yael Katz is the co founder and CEO of Braincheck, a healthcare technology company focused on making cognitive health assessments more accessible. Prior to co founding Braincheck, Yael was VP of ecommerce at JW Player and a post doctoral research fellows at Princeton University. She received a Ph.D in in Biological Sciences focusing on Computational and Experimental Neuroscience from Northwestern University.Alan What brought you to co founding Braincheck? Yael If a person has a concern that