The last Saturday in February, Tommy Bianchi was sitting at his kitchen table in a rented apartment in east Phoenix, scrolling through the IRS “Where’s My Refund” tool on his phone. He’d filed his 2025 taxes on January 28 — early, intentionally — and had been checking the tracker every morning since. That day, the status had finally updated. What he read made him set the phone face-down on the table and stare at the ceiling for a long moment.
When I sat down with Tommy Bianchi a few weeks later, the 46-year-old HVAC technician was still processing what had happened. His expected refund of roughly $3,200 had been reduced to $847 by the time the direct deposit hit his bank account on February 24. The reason: a Treasury Offset Program intercept tied to a child support balance his ex-wife’s attorney had flagged with the state.
Three Years of Starting Over
Tommy’s divorce was finalized in early 2023. He told me about it the way people describe a car accident — in precise, almost clinical detail, as if replaying the sequence might eventually explain how it happened. The settlement gave the family home to his ex-wife. He walked away with his tools, his truck, and approximately $22,000 in legal fees he’d charged across three credit cards during the proceedings.
He’s been renting ever since — a two-bedroom apartment he chose specifically for the second bedroom, so his two kids, ages 12 and 15, have somewhere to sleep on the weekends he has them. “The apartment isn’t much,” Tommy told me, “but I wanted them to feel like it was still home. Like Dad’s place was a real place, not just a couch somewhere.”
He earns roughly $74,000 a year as a senior HVAC tech for a commercial contractor. After federal and state taxes, child support of $1,600 a month consumes about 25% of his gross income. What remains after rent, utilities, insurance, and the minimum payments on those divorce credit cards leaves him with very little margin. He described his monthly budget to me as “surgical” — every dollar accounted for, no fat to trim.
The Refund He Had Already Spent in His Head
Tommy had been anticipating his 2025 tax refund since December. His reasoning was straightforward: a $3,200 refund, applied to the highest-interest credit card from the divorce, would bring that balance from $6,400 down to roughly $3,200 — and potentially cut his minimum payment by nearly $80 a month. That $80, he told me, “sounds small, but it’s the difference between being able to take the kids to a game and not being able to.”
He filed using tax software he’d used for years, completing his return on January 28. He reported his wages, his single filing status — a change from the married-filing-jointly returns he’d submitted throughout his marriage — and claimed his two children as dependents under the terms of his divorce agreement, which alternates the dependency exemption each year. 2025 was his year to claim both kids.
What he didn’t know, and what no alert in his tax software flagged, was that his ex-wife’s attorney had submitted paperwork to Arizona’s Division of Child Support Services in late 2025 alleging a short-period arrears balance from a disputed month in early 2024. Tommy says he disputes that balance entirely. “I have bank records,” he told me, his voice tightening. “I have never missed a payment. Not once. But that didn’t matter in February.”
How the Offset Actually Works
According to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the Treasury Offset Program intercepts federal payments — including IRS refunds — to collect delinquent debts certified by state and federal agencies. States submit past-due child support cases to the program automatically once a balance meets their threshold. In Arizona, that threshold for offset submission is $150 for cases where the custodial parent receives public assistance, and $500 for all other cases.
The critical detail: taxpayers do not receive advance notice before an offset occurs. According to IRS Topic No. 203, the IRS issues a notice after the fact — typically a letter explaining the offset, the agency that received the funds, and a contact number for disputes. Tommy received that letter on March 3, eight days after his reduced deposit arrived.
Tommy told me he spent the better part of two days on the phone after receiving the letter — first calling the number printed on the IRS notice, then being redirected to the Arizona DES, then being told he needed to submit a written dispute with supporting documentation. “I asked if someone could just look at my bank statements right then,” he said. “They told me it was a process. I said, ‘I know it’s a process. It’s my money.'”
The Weekends That Break the Budget
Even before the offset, Tommy’s relationship with money has a specific vulnerability he described to me with some candor. Every other weekend, when his kids come to stay, he spends. He knows it. He’s not sure he can stop.
He estimates he spends between $300 and $500 on kid weekends — movies, food, a Suns game once a quarter if he can manage it. That spending isn’t irrational on its face, but layered on top of $1,600 in monthly child support, $22,000 in credit card debt still being paid down, and now a disputed $2,353 offset, it contributes to a financial picture with very little give.
He told me he’d been looking at houses — casually, on Zillow, the way people window-shop things they can’t yet afford. In Phoenix’s current market, a starter home in his preferred east-side neighborhoods runs between $340,000 and $390,000. A conventional loan at today’s rates would require roughly $17,000 to $20,000 for a 5% down payment, plus closing costs. His current savings: approximately $2,100.
Where Things Stand Now
When I last checked in with Tommy in mid-March, his written dispute had been submitted to the Arizona Division of Child Support Services with three months of bank records attached. He’d been told to expect a response within 30 to 45 business days. He’s not optimistic about the timeline, though he says his documentation is solid. “Either they find the error or they don’t,” he told me. “At this point I just want an answer.”
The $847 he did receive went toward groceries and a utility bill, not the credit card he’d been targeting. The debt reduction he’d planned — that potential $80-a-month breathing room — is now delayed by the better part of a year, assuming he can rebuild the savings cushion and stay current on everything else.
The homeownership goal, the thing he pulls up on Zillow when the apartment feels particularly small, has effectively been pushed back another year. He talks about it the way people talk about a trip they keep intending to take — with enough specificity that you know they mean it, but enough resignation that you understand they’ve stopped setting dates.
He told me his older kid, the 15-year-old, asked him recently why they never went back to “the real house.” Tommy said he told him the real house was wherever they were together. “I meant it,” he said. “But I also know it sounded like something you say when the true answer is too complicated.”
I left Tommy’s apartment on a Tuesday evening in late March. He had a job quote to finish before his kids arrived that Friday. He said he was planning to take them to a trampoline park — had already looked up the prices, already calculated it into the week. Some costs, he told me, are just not negotiable.
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