Taqas in Government-owned Property

Although Taqas (Offset of debts) is an undisputed precept of Imamiyah jurisprudence and there is no dispute over permissibility of setting off debts from natural person's property by taking the debtor's property -who denies to pay off his debt- without his permission, the issue is to set off debts from government-owned property, i.e. is it permissible for natural persons to set off debts from legal person's property? In spite of the importance of the issue, Imamiyah jurists have not discussed the matter except some hints given in margins of some chapters; or in response to some requests for judicial opinion from Imam Khomeini and some other contemporary scholars. After mentioning the viewpoints in this regard, this paper states the reasons of permissibility of Taqas from government-owned property and discusses them to evaluate the possible objections supporting the impermissibility view and finally according to Sahiha of Davoud Ibn Razin and concerning generality and absoluteness of some other reasons of Taqas consisting of Quranic verses and narrations, it deduces that under some conditions, it is permissible to set off debts from government-owned property.