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Hi all, Hoping to get clarification, suggestions and assistance from those of you with some experience. I am currently rehabilitating my student loans, and am making payment number 5 next week actually. Last year, my taxes were offset and I lost my rather substantial refund. No fault but my own of course, but now I'm on the straight and narrow so to speak and handling things properly as well as working on my credit. I was concerned that this would happen again this year, and have been doing some digging online. I found the IRS automated offset info number and called it today. It states that my taxes indeed "may be offset this year". So I called the US Dept of Education number provided by the IRS line. Worked through the automated stuff on there end, which didn't provide alot as it just referred me back to the collection agency rehabbing my loan. Managed to get a real person, who verified they were aware that I was making payments and verified the correct number made so far. I explained that I was concerned my refund would be taken this year as well as the fact that things are rather lean in my household and I wanated to do anything possible to assure I received my refund. Honestly I can't afford to lose it, as we're pretty much paycheck to paycheck at this point. She was polite and explained that the US Dept of Education would take any tax refunds until the rehab was complete, and had been transferred to a loan holder. She also said at that point it would take the new loan holder about 30 days to send notice to the Dept of Edu, and then it would be another 30 days (minimum) for this info to get from the Dept of Edu to the IRS and have them take me off the tax garnishment list. Adding all of that up, it will be over 7 months before it "might" be possible to come off the IRS list. Is this correct? I mean I understand that I heard it directly from the US Dept of Edu person, but I've seen postings on here ( One on the main page as I write this...) where people have gotten off of the IRS list after 4 payments. I've also read a discussion where the collection agency sends a verification letter to the Dept of Education to "de-certify" ( wrong term? ) the tax offset. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I had truly hoped that here in a few weeks I would be able to get out of this hole I'm in once and for all as I've worked hard to pay off all old debts, and am trying to do things right. But I'm barely scraping by at the moment. Thanks for any and all guidance.