- Samantha Dreissig, 25, is a summer camp counselor and is very much alive.
- But Dreissig told CBS New York that she's been fighting the
IRS for seven years to prove that. - An administrative mix-up caused Dreissig to be listed as deceased after her mother died in 2014.
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Summer camp counselor Samantha Dreissig, 25, told CBS New York she has been trying for years to undo an administrative mix-up that declared her dead to the IRS and caused tax problems for her father.
"The last actual person I had spoken to from the IRS said, and I quote, 'Wow, you're dead all over our system'," Dreissig told the outlet. She presented letters from the IRS, which read that her social security number was locked by the Social Security Administration, noting that her ID number "belongs to someone who is deceased."
Dreissig told CBS New York that her last correspondence with an IRS agent was over a year ago, before the COVID pandemic.
She speculates that the administrative snafu happened in 2014. Dreissig attempted to file her
"They say nope, sorry, this account's linked to a deceased person," she said.
However, it is not known how the administrative confusion happened, because Dreissig does not share the same first or last name with her mother. Dreissig said that because of this mix-up, her father was unable to claim her as a dependent on his tax returns.
"I honestly want the IRS to know that I'm alive and kicking," she said.
It is unclear how many other people are in the same position as Dreissig, but this is not the first time that the IRS has run into similar administrative problems. A Treasury report released on May 24 this year noted that the IRS sent nearly 2.2 million stimulus checks totaling nearly $3.5 billion to people who, per the agency's records were dead. CNBC reported that 60,000 of these economic impact payments, which totaled around $72 million, were voluntarily returned.
The IRS did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.