Many people who claimed unemployment in the El Paso area have claimed Unemployment Benefits because of they were laid off or terminated from their jobs. However, many are receiving letters demanding repayment of unemployment benefits because the state of Texas claims they were either not entitled to the benefits they received or were overpaid. This is known as the clawback of benefits.
Thousands of Texans have claimed unemployment as a result of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. However the State claims that it overpaid 46,000.00 of these unemployed workers and is now attempting to clawback the payments they paid. I get a lot of calls from people who have received a letter from Texas Unemployment demanding repayment of benefits that they received. Many times, the unemployed individuals received the overpayment not as a result of any fraud or fault of their own. Despite this the State of Texas will demand and is entitled to the repayment of these benefits. In fact, if it is fraud there can be criminal sanctions and a 15% penalty. However, it is has been my experience that the State of Texas understands that these individuals are unemployed and it really is not worth while to actually sue the individuals. Instead, the State of Texas generally simply waits to see if future claims of unemployment are made at which time the payments are offset for what is owed by the individual. In other words, if you owe a $1,000.00 to unemployment they will simply wait until you file another claim for unemployment and then will simply offset the payments you are entitled to in the future to cover the $1,000.00. In general debts have a 4 year statute of limitations, but because your debt is owed to the State of Texas it never expires.