EUA , DE REPÚBLICA A IMPÉRIO :

Daily Mail, UK - apr 2014 - clique aqui
EUA: pais devedores, confiscar dos filhos. Impõe ilegal dívida por herança, tomar pelo arbítrio. 
Hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens are getting shocking letters in their mailboxes instead of tax refund checks – nastygrams informing them that the federal government has seized their money to repay debts their parents decades-old debts that they never settled. In some cases, they're debts the parents never knew they had. And no one warned their children. 

The 2008 Farm Bill included a single line that made it possible, allowing the government for the first time to hunt down individual taxpayers who have owed Uncle Sam money for more than ten years. If the debtor is deceased, according to the Federal Trade Commission, the money is considered a write-off. But the Social Security Administration has a different view of the law, chasing down adults whose parents cared for them with unintentionally overpaid benefits.