Frequently Asked Questions for the Public
The questions on this web page are about the Treasury Offset Program, the program that withholds money to pay for a debt. If you have questions about that debt and how to pay it, look at the Debt Management FAQs.
Your payment may be less because you owed an overdue debt to a federal or state agency. If that is the case, you should have received a letter telling you this would happen.
The law says that Treasury may withhold money to satisfy an overdue (delinquent) debt. The official term for withholding money from a payment is "offset" or "administrative offset."
The program that offsets federal payments for overdue debts is the Treasury Offset Program (TOP).
The Treasury Offset Program (TOP) staff cannot discuss your debt with you, refund any amounts collected, or discuss payment options with you. If you have questions or need help, you may contact the agency that is servicing your debt. Usually, that is either the agency to which you owe the debt or the Cross-Servicing program.
If your payment is less because you owed an overdue debt to a federal or state agency, TOP can tell you who to call about it. To get that information, call the TOP Interactive Voice Response system: 800-304-3107.
Get IRS Form 8379 or call the IRS at 800-829-3676. For help with the form - or if you have already filed Form 8379 and still do not have your correct refund - call the IRS at 800-829-1040 or call your local IRS office.
The law lets states collect overdue child support from some types of federal payments.
Contact your state or local child-support enforcement office to find out whether the Treasury Offset Program can decrease your ex-spouse's federal payments for the overdue child support your ex-spouse owes.
For more information, you can also contact the federal Office of Child-Support Enforcement at 202-401-9373.
There can be lag times of two weeks or more between when an offset is taken and when the agency collecting the debt receives and processes the collection.
For example, for child support debts, we send the amounts we collect to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Child-Support Services. They send the money to the states. To find out about a specific payment, you may ask your state child-support enforcement office to contact HHS.
Your information can be sent to TOP when you have not paid money you owe to a federal or state agency on time. Before sending your name to TOP, the agency must determine that your debt is valid and legally enforceable and provide you with notification of their intent to collect the debt through offset.
If you owe an overdue debt to a government agency, the agency sends information about your debt to our database.
When you are going to get a federal payment, we search the database to see if you owe an overdue debt.
If your debt is in the database, we hold back money from the payment to pay your debt. (The official words for holding back money are "offsetting the payment" or "administrative offset.")
When we take money from your payment, we sent you a letter explaining what we did.
Depending on the type of debt you owe, we can take money from these payments:
- Tax refunds
- Wages, including military pay
- Retirement, including military retirement pay and OPM annuity payments
- Contractor or vendor payments
- Travel advances and reimbursements
- Some federal benefit payments, including Black Lung (Part B) benefits, Railroad Retirement benefits (except Tier 2), and Social Security benefits (except Supplemental Security Income)
- Other federal payments, unless statue or the Secretary of the Treasury exempts the payment from offset. Payments exempted from offset are listed on this chart.
- Some state payments
Please see our Quick Reference Chart on the Treasury Offset Program for a general list of payments subject to offset, including by what percentage those payments can be offset.
Before an agency refers a debt to us, the agency must send you a letter. The letter must tell you:
- What the debt is for
- How much you owe
- That the agency intends to collect the debt by taking money from a federal payment
- What your rights are, including your rights to see, copy, and review information about the debt, and the ways you can arrange to repay the debt
If we take money from a federal payment to pay an overdue debt that you owe, you will get a letter notifying you of the offset.