FMS: One Call, That's All.

January 2010 is upon us and as such there's nothing better than to cure the holiday debt with an little help from Uncle Sam. The sooner the better. Around mid January, the IRS is ready to accept electronically filed returns into their system for processing. For those whose returns are accepted, it can mean a refund in as little as 7 to 10 days. However, before you commit to a Rapid Refund Loan (RAL) through your preparer for a same day to 48 hour refund, or even have the expectation of receiving a full refund in 7 to 10 days, make sure that you make one phone call. This phone call, to an organization known as the Financial Management Service, or FMS, is the office in which individuals that owe specific types of debt are reported to such that the debt can be taken from their IRS refund check. If you owe the following organizations money, you would do well to contact FMS at 1-800-304-3107 before filing your return to make sure that all or part of your refund is not subject to offset:

Child Support
Student Loans
Department of Agriculture (Food Stamp Program)
Military (Any branch of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines, whether you are active or a veteran)
Social Security Administration
State Department of Revenue

When you contact FMS, you will be asked for your social security number twice for verification purposes. You will also be given a disclaimer that you should be using the system for your own personal account and that you can only interface the system for someone else's account with their written consent. You are also warned that your number is being recorded as an identifying record and should you call regarding someone else's account without express written consent, you should hang up now.

If you are calling on your own account and if you have no debt that appears on the system at that time (debts are added daily), you are advised that your refund will not be subject to offset. However, if your account shows a debt, the system will state that all or part of your refund may be offset to a debt that you have with debtor name, and their phone number. This information is given by the automated system that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Should you desire to speak to a representative, you will need to call between the hours of 7AM to 5 PM Central Time Monday through Friday and choose the option for a representative.

Once you know whether or not your refund is subject to offset, or not, you can breath a sigh of relief. And all it took was one phone call.