Utah Woman Forced To Pay Child Support... But Has No Kids

Debra Horton has a dog, but no children. So imagine her surprise when the Internal Revenue Service took $1,500 from her to pay child support.

The IRS deducted $1,525 from Horton's income tax refund to go toward the child support, but when she tried to explain to officials that she had no kids -- it didn't seem to change things.

"I have never had children," she said. "I know that I would have been there."

The order to intercept Debra's tax refund came from the Fairfax, Virginia division of child support enforcement -- and it even had a case number. But since she has never had children, there is no actual case.

But Debra's first attempt at resolving the issue was met with an audio recording. Eventually, we got involved and got Debra through to an actual person. But rather than sending the money back to her -- officials mistakenly sent it to another person's bank account.

Next, Debra called an official in Virginia and was referred to the Utah office. Someone in the Provo office then referred her to the Virginia governor's office.

But instead of calling the governor, we contacted officials at the Office of Recovery Services in Utah. Though they have nothing to do with Debra's problem, perhaps they could get officials in Virginia to hurry things up.

And apparently, it worked. Debra soon received a refund check from Virginia in the mail. Kathleen Taylor, at the Office of Recovery Services, put a stop to the nonsense.

"We were just able to follow up with the people from the other state... and we said 'let's just do it,'" Taylor said.

By the way, Debra did actually send an e-mail message to the governor's office in Virginia -- but never got a response.