It took a U.S. Senator, Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota to finally reverse the false declaration that Adam Ronning, 33, was deceased after he tried for 29 years.
The error started when Ronning was 4 years old, and his mother received a letter stating that she could no longer receive child support because somehow the IRS declared her son was deceased. The IRS blamed the error on a computer glitch but never rectified the situation.
Ronning states, “They’ve never been able to prove that I’m dead. It’s always me proving that I’m still here.”
After Ronning filed his 2009 tax returns, the IRS gave him only half of his refund because they showed him as deceased. Ronning continued to file his taxes every year but never received the refund due him and spent hours on the phone with the IRS, on hold, trying to speak to supervisors only to be told it was a problem with the Social Security office.
After finally receiving a letter from the Department of Treasury, Ronning is hoping to receive an estimated amount of $20,000 that the IRS owes him in tax refunds.
A “60 Minutes” investigation found that approximately 9,000 Americans are erroneously declared dead each year.
