Tax time nightmare

MIDDLESEX, VA - Tax time can mean a sea of paperwork and sometimes, a confusing array of numbers. Between tax preparation, state, and federal agencies - mistakes are inevitable.

A Middlesex woman called 10 on Your Side saying she's experienced the same tax time nightmare played out not once, not twice, but three times.

No matter how careful you are, mistakes that are out of your control can happen.

Melinda Hart's story is proof. Hart is working hard to raise a family while her husband is in Iraq. A clerical error caused the IRS to intercept her tax refund to pay a legal debt that wasn't even hers.

The Harts became a family after Melinda and her husband Brent married three years ago. Brent's two sons, Philip and Matthew, are from a previous marriage, but the Harts have full custody.

"We went to court shortly after we got custody to ask for child support," said Melinda Hart.

Brent's ex-wife was ordered to pay $308 a month, but the payments never came, which led to two more court hearings over the last two years.

In an effort to collect what was now close to $6,000 in delinquent child support, the Hart's only hope was a tax intercept, where the court would snag Brent's ex-wife's tax refund an apply it to her outstanding child support.

"Basically they did everything they said they were going to do, only they took it from MY tax money," said a frustrated Hart.

So, exactly how did it happen?

Melinda was set to receive a 2008 IRS refund of more than $3,000 until -- "I opened up a letter from the IRS who was informing me my refund was $3431, however, I wouldn't get it .. that it went to pay-off my back child support," Hart explained.

It was an apparent clerical mix-up at the Virginia Division of Child Support, between the current Mrs. Hart and the ex-Mrs. Hart and we found out it's happened twice before. The first time with her 2007 tax refund.

"On March 14, 2008. That's when they applied my income tax check to her child support debt," said Hart.

A few months later, Melinda's stimulus check never made it into her account, leaving the Harts out of cash and the boys biological mother in luck.

"It brought her balance of what she owed to zero. By the time they get it straight, their Mom will have received her tax check and will have spent it," Hart says.

And that has left the Harts, for the third time, back at square one and trying to get the child support money that is legally owed to them.

After 10 On Your Side began making calls to the Division of Child Support Enforcement, they told us, "They are looking at every avenue available to figure out what happened and how to correct it as quickly as possible."