Dead men pay no taxes?

[webhick]

It appears that a Donald Miller Jr was declared dead in 1994, eight years after he disappeared. Problem is that he's very much alive and just lost a court case which would have reversed his "legally dead" status. He can't get a license or social security number, so...

How does this dead man pay taxes?

EDIT: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/ju ... 43615.html

[fortinbras]

Donald Miller is no victim. He pulled a vanishing act on his wife, children, and creditors, and hid completely for well over 5 years, not once communicating with his family. During that time, his wife was in serious financial straits, especially because she could not get his signature for a lot of financial transactions. She finally obtained a court decree that he was legally dead which enabled her to legally claim to be his widow and capable of making financial commitments by herself. When Donald Miller came back to town he was told that not only had he hid himself for the entire period required for a court decree of being legally dead, he had overstayed the grace period for disputing such a decree. He should be glad he's only legally dead; a lot of families, abandoned this way, might have wanted him dead in every sense of the word.

[Burnaby49]

The story is very well told below. How can you beat the opening sentence?

"[There's a] man sitting in the courtroom, he appears to be in good health," noted Judge Allan Davis on Monday. But by the end of the hearing, that man was dead.

He had also been dead when he walked in, though, so nothing really changed.

http://www.loweringthebar.net/2013/10/n ... eased.html

[notorial dissent]

I would say that he sounds like no peach of a guy, and the old saw of "nothing in life so became him as the leaving of it" applies. I wonder, if he is legally resuscitated if the back child support and alimony and what not would then be collectible, always assuming he had anything to collect against, which it appears he doesn't. I'm not sure which would be the bigger can of worms, bringing him back to legal life, or leaving him legally dead? An interesting prospect.

[webhick]

Donald Miller is no victim.

I did not mean to imply that he is/was.

[ArthurWankspittle]

This is one of those situations that lawmakers would not have planned for. I think you can take one of two approaches, one of which is better than the other. Either you "re-wind" the entire process, (Aside: declaring him undead?) he owes his ex-wife child support and she has to pay back/ balance up what she has received from various agencies and insurers. This is obviously an imposition on her and possibly goes against some "after the fact" elements of law. Alternatively, you stick with what has been done up to the discovery of him still being alive. Then re-instate the situation as at that point forward.

[fortinbras]

Legally it is as if there are two Donald Millers. One was the family man who was "lost at sea" and declared legally dead. And the second showed up after the first one's funeral and has to pay his own taxes -- and any debts left from the first Donald Miller.

[notorial dissent]

EXCEPT, that the returned personality, has no valid birth certificate as that individual has been declared dead, he has no, and cannot get a SSN, since he is dead and has no birth certificate, so he really is an un-person for all intents and purposes, and once SSA declares you dead, you are far deader than anything a mere judge can do.

[fortinbras]

Well, this is a very rare situation (in modern times - I imagine it happened more often more than 3 centuries ago), and probably would require a lot of lawyer/accountant time to make things work for this "new" Donald Miller.

[ArthurWankspittle]

Advanced law, paper 3, discuss: What happens if his ex-wife now kills him?

[fogobum]

EXCEPT, that the returned personality, has no valid birth certificate as that individual has been declared dead, he has no, and cannot get a SSN, since he is dead and has no birth certificate, so he really is an un-person for all intents and purposes, and once SSA declares you dead, you are far deader than anything a mere judge can do.

I wonder. It appears that he is officially stately dead. Does that make him federally dead? I don't think that the Feds are obligated to recognize Ohio's opinion (recent DOMA decisions notwithstanding). If he's not federally dead he still has his SSN (however invalidated statewise) and is obligated to pay federal taxes. (I have No Opinion, were he de jure federally dead, whether he'd still be obligated to pay taxes. I note that "individual" as used in the income tax laws does NOT specify "live".)

I also have No Idea whether other states are obligated to recognize Ohio's opinion.

[AndyK]

Assuming his death terminated his American citizenship, he is now some form of foreigner (albeit lacking any foreign citizenship) residing on American soil.

As such, he is subject to the income tax laws the same as any other resident (or non-resident but earning in America) foreigner would be.

The status of his SSN makes things more interesting, but not insurmountable.

His primary difficulty will be getting back on the radar in terms of employment, finances, etc.

[notorial dissent]

Unless my understanding on this is completely off, when he was declared legally dead by the court, the SSA was so notified him and they updated his status to deceased, since that is the only way the family could get benefits from them, and once SSA declared him dead, it went to IRS to complete the process. He is in a world of hurt as the SSA will not reverse their actions without a court order, so I don't think he can even get a new SSN. I don't know how many realms of law this tramps through, but it must be several.

I find this ironic as a former boss of mine got declared dead through some paperwork screwup at SSA and it has messed that and her taxes up for a good many years, and each agency says that someone else has to fix it, and no one has or would the last I heard.

[Burzmali]

So if an employer were to pay him without withholding (which they couldn't do if they wanted to, due to the lack of a valid SSN), which law would they be breaking? I'm not sure how one pays a corpse for services rendered.

[AndyK]

So if an employer were to pay him without withholding (which they couldn't do if they wanted to, due to the lack of a valid SSN), which law would they be breaking? I'm not sure how one pays a corpse for services rendered.

Some version of one of the laws relating to necrophilia

I apologize. I'll go back to my room.

[ArthurWankspittle]

Assuming his death terminated his American citizenship, he is now some form of foreigner (albeit lacking any foreign citizenship) residing on American soil.

I don't see how you lose your citizenship through being dead. You may lose some citizenship rights but pretty much the entire planet recognises your citizenship continues after death, e.g. military graves.
I wonder if he is in a similar situation to that which would occur in the UK. Being dead means he no longer pays taxes. However, his estate is an entity subject to many rules and various taxes.

[notorial dissent]

I think you can only lose your citizenship, no matter how acquired by court action, death shouldn't enter in to it, otherwise we'd have a whole passel of non-citizen ancestors floating about, and just think of the chaos it would cause to the DAR's etc. So I don't think so on this one.

My question for the real legal types around here, what do you do in a situation like this?

My supposition, is that since the county judge who declared him dead won't undo the deed, that you just go over his head and get the next level up to go "oops, judicial error, he ain't dead, paperwork null and void", and get on with your life.