My Father passed away in 1999. In 2004, my mother, asked my sister what she should do with these things she keeps getting in the mail for my dad, from John Hancock, Life Insurance. My sister, tried to call John Hancock and get information about what the statement was for??? Nobody knew he had any kind of life insurance or anything of that nature. The John Hancock representative, explained to my sister that he could not give out any information on the policy as she was not the beneficiary on the policy. He told her that I was and for me too call them asap. Well not only am I the youngest, and we were all very surprised that dad had any type of life/retirement insurance at all, and further more that my mom or one of my older siblings were not the beneficiary on the policy. Well I called them and they, explained to me what I call “Mumble Jumbo” terminology I had no clue what they were talking about, I basically asked them is there any money, answer was yes, very little. As I understood it dad had not finished paying off the insurance policy and i am not quite sure, but i thought they were asking me to keep up the policy, I was trying to explain to them that dad was dead, and had been for 8 years. I was young and dumb, but they said if i wanted to get the money/ dividend from the policy, I could and then the policy would not be valid any longer. well of course I did. I sent the required death certificate and sign some papers I didn’t even keep a copy. They sent me a check for $300.00 something dollars. I remember it was under $500.00 I thought that was the end of that. Well here it is 2009 and the I.R.S. sent me a letter, that they needed me to call them that they are reviewing my 2003, 2004, 2005 tax years. I called they said 2003 is OK, 2005 is OK, 2004 there is a problem, I had a larger gross income then i reported back then and they are holding 2008 tax refund until they figure out if I owe back taxes. I thought this was a joke. Then they told me I had a distribution from John Hancock of $16,619.00. I about flipped, told them I had no such of a thing, they told me it’s best to call the company and to figure out what was going on. I did contact them, they used this kind of terminology that I took over Ownership of my dad’s policy, and I also surrendered the policy in 2004, I agreed with them on that. They said the total distribution’s for the policy was $16,619.00, but only $10,219.00 were taxable dollars. Well I am sure they are, and i would pay the taxes on it, but I never received that kinda of money, I received less than $500.00, John Hancock representative, said they understood that but there were loans taken out on the policy, and since I took over ownership of the policy, those distributions now were as if I received those funds. This is was out of my league, can anyone PLEASE HELP ME!! please explain how this is even legal or what is really going on. I have already started to re-file my 2004 income tax returns, but with the penalty’s and fines, I might not get anything back this year, or the next. I can’t understand how someone else took out Loans against the policy, they die and now since I was the beneficiary, I am now responsible for those funds that were distributed prior to my dad’s death????? so any help will do thanks so much
