State Representative Victor Anderson (R-Cornelia) is calling on the Georgia Department of Labor to stop garnishing the tax refunds of individuals who have ongoing appeals regarding overpayment of Unemployment Insurance benefits.
“Every citizen of Georgia is guaranteed ‘due process,’” says Rep. Anderson.
On Friday, Anderson took to the well of the House of Representatives during a morning order to call on Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler to stop this process for unresolved appeals.
“In the heat of the pandemic, our Department of Labor issued pandemic unemployment assistance payments to many of our constituents on behalf of the federal government,” Anderson explained. “Last spring, some of these recipients received letters from the DOL informing them that they may not have qualified for those payments and demanding they return the funds.”
Anderson claims that those amounts ranged from $6,000 to $12,000. He says an appeals process has been opened to those who received those demand letters, but that none of the individuals he has spoken to regarding the matter have had the issue resolved.
“This past weekend, I received emails and phone calls from some of my constituents stating that their state income tax refunds were being garnished without due process,” Anderson went on to say. “My concern is less about whether or not someone was incorrectly paid benefits but more about the automatic presumption of guilt.”
Thirty legislators joined Anderson in sending a formal letter to Commissioner Butler requesting that the DOL immediately stop garnishing tax refunds until the cases are resolved. He also asked the commissioner to immediately refund garnished funds to any individual with an open, unresolved appeal.
