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Family Forum / Parenting / Parenting / January 2006Question for Bob W
My husband is going to court at the end of January to have "arrearages set." He has complained for the last year-and-a-half that Oregon grabs our income tax refund, but Ca never subtracts it from the arrearages. Ca. has been $5000 off in their total due! Quite a chunk of change. Oregon says he owes only $1450 in arrearages. Ca called this week and told him that, after getting together with Or, they have found that he only owes $4700. That is with Ca interest added in, of course. We need some (non-legal) advice. We could borrow and pay off the $4700, but I know that our income tax refund will still be grabbed this year. Which would mean he would be overpaid by approx $2000. What would Or do with that $2000 overpayment? Would they send it back? Or send it through to the mom (who is not owed it?) Would it be better to wait for our tax refund to be snagged, then pay off the remainder of the arrearage, giving them nearly a year to take our name off the "grab their refund" list? How would you handle it, were it you? Child support will be over in Apr, 2008--a little over 2 years. Thanks!! > My husband is going to court at the end of January to have "arrearages set." > He has complained for the last year-and-a-half that Oregon grabs our income [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > off the "grab their refund" list? How would you handle it, were it you? > Child support will be over in Apr, 2008--a little over 2 years. Thanks!! I have zero experience with interstate CS enforcement other than hearing other fathers complain about all the inconsistencies when two states are involved. My personal experience with hearings regarding arrearages is you get one bit at the apple. And despite what evidence you bring to court, it won't be exactly what you need to prove your side of the case. BTW - Oregon does not access interest automatically on arrearage amounts on non-IV-D cases. They require the CP to calculate the interest, explain how the amount was determined, and they give the NCP the chance to challenge the interest calculation in a hearing before they add it to the account. IV-D cases have the interest added automatically. I do know this. Oregon is good about sending NCP's a refund when an overpayment is received. On several occasions I sent them a spreadsheet showing previous statement balances, current payments made since the statement date, and current month withholding to demonstrate the overpayment. Ironically, on two occasions I got duplicate refunds for the amount I was demanding and they tried to hit me with arrearage withholding because they made a mistake by over-refunding. I called them on it and they backed off. Kinda reading into what you wrote I would suggest a couple of things. First, ask the court to order the CA CS administration to justify how they come up with the principle amount and how the interest was calculated. And second, ask the court to make CA CS administration disclose what they are doing with the interest. Here's why. If the principle plus CA interest is being sent to Oregon and Oregon does not access interest (or a different amount) the principle will be paid off faster than the CA records will show. Oregon will then refund the interest over payment and that money goes somewhere. If it goes to CA CS administration and they don't refund it to your husband that just doesn't sound right. You also might look into how the full faith and credit process works. It may be to your benefit to ask the court to clear up all the discrepancies in dollars owned by requiring CA to only recognize the Oregon CS accounting and not do a separate accounting. There are provisions in interstate CS law for a state to have their order apply in another state. You'll need to have an attorney with expertise in interstate CS law help you with that aspect. Worse case I guess would be to keep paying the CA CS amounts until it is paid off and continually ask for refunds from Oregon for the overpayments. >> My husband is going to court at the end of January to have "arrearages > set." [quoted text clipped - 75 lines] > Worse case I guess would be to keep paying the CA CS amounts until it is > paid off and continually ask for refunds from Oregon for the overpayments. Thanks, Bob. Your answer is very helpful. More papers arrived today. The arrearage amount is now down to $4100. Down from the $10,000+ they were saying was owed, and even down from the $4700 they told us just a week or so ago. They sent spreadsheets, so I can get out all the papers I have from Or and Ca and compare them. The mother slid from welfare to disability (because of her nonstop drinking), and has never worked a day in her l;ife, so I am assuming that Or adds interest automatically, and she has nothing to do with it. Mom never communicates, although her social worked once called and asked my husband to send a duplicate payment because the wage garnishment had not arrived yet. (Needless to say, he did not do so) The court date has been moved to February. I think they are just looking for the arrearage to be paid off, and want to set payments to make that happen. When they get our tax refund, the amount will be more than half paid off. So my next question is, once the arrearage amount is paid off, will they automatically change the payment to include only the current CS owed? Or will we need to go back to court to ask that the amount be lowered to only current CS without arrearages? It would be awful to be told that we could not go back to court for 2 years, and have to pay the extra every month!! > More papers arrived today. The arrearage amount is now down to $4100. Down > from the $10,000+ they were saying was owed, and even down from the $4700 [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > would be awful to be told that we could not go back to court for 2 years, > and have to pay the extra every month!! It is my understanding tax refund intercepts are done on an annual basis. In Oregon, their computer system automatically sends the IRS an annual list of all cases with an arrearage. The cut-off for IV-D cases is $150 in arrears. It's $500 for non-IV-D cases. The arrearage withholding order is a one time event. The hearing you are going to have is preliminary to setting the arrearage amount which in turn sets up how long it will take to collect the arrearage established. The wage withholding order which goes to the employer should comply with state law for the maximum arrearage collected through withholding. In Oregon the maximum is 25% of the NCP's original order amount. So if a basic order is for $300 per month, the maximum they can withhold would be $375 per month. I had acceptable results dealing with Oregon CS accounting by monitoring my own account, writing to them with spreadsheets to back up my requests, and having them act. So I would recommend closely watching the account balance and when it gets down near being paid off send a request to stop the arrearage wage withholding a month before the need to end it. Send a spreadsheet to show how future wage withholding will zero out the remaining arrearage amount. One other thing I did that really helped - Every time I sent a request to the CS accounting unit I ended the letter with something like - "If you are unable to complete my request for . . . please pass my request on to a senior manager for them to review." That worked to get my requests out of the hands of the low-level case workers and into the hands of managers who could do things other than following a business process flow chart. >> More papers arrived today. The arrearage amount is now down to $4100. > Down [quoted text clipped - 58 lines] > the hands of the low-level case workers and into the hands of managers who > could do things other than following a business process flow chart. Thanks, Bob. I have printed this out and put it with the other paperwork. We are going to let them take this year's refund, then I am going to increase my allowances so we have to pay for the next few years, and keep the extra $$ in an account so we will have it to pay with come tax time each year. The arrearages should be paid off by next year if they take it the way you mention above. At that point, once the arrearages are totally paid off, will we need to go back to court, or will it just happen on its own? (I really appreciate your helpfullness, Bob!) > >> More papers arrived today. The arrearage amount is now down to $4100. > > Down [quoted text clipped - 67 lines] > off, will we need to go back to court, or will it just happen on its own? > (I really appreciate your helpfullness, Bob!) My experience was by being proactive with my CS account I didn't have to go back to court. I ended up working out withholding changes satisfactorily through my case worker or management contacts at the CS accounting unit. The managers have a lot of power to do things administratively without court approval. (The state law gives the CS program administrator the same signing authority as a Circuit Court Judge.) But I can't speak for how California CSE might handle an interstate CS file from their end. If you want the email address for the head of the Oregon CS accounting unit send me a private email and I'll send it to you. She is very responsive and did some good things voluntarily to help me. I know her casually through some of my testimony before the legislature. If she wasn't the "dreaded enemy" I'd call her a babe. :-) If all else fails, Oregon has a very good grievance procedure they run through a "Constituent's Desk." The father's in Oregon successfully got a Consent Decree several years ago requiring the state to set up a grievance procedure to respond to our complaints. They help CP mom's too. I have a generic email address for those people too if you want it. |
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