[Congressional Bills 108th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 547 Introduced in House (IH)]







108th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 547

 To expand the Federal tax refund intercept program to cover children 
                          who are not minors.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            February 5, 2003

  Mr. Castle introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                      Committee on Ways and Means

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To expand the Federal tax refund intercept program to cover children 
                          who are not minors.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Child Support Fairness and Tax 
Refund Interception Act of 2003''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds the following:
            (1) Enforcing child support orders remains a serious 
        problem in the United States. There are approximately 
        12,000,000 active cases in which a child support order requires 
        a noncustodial parent to contribute to the support of his or 
        her child. Of the $22,000,000,000 owed in 1999 pursuant to such 
        orders, $12,000,000,000, or 54 percent, has been collected.
            (2) It is an injustice for the Federal Government to issue 
        tax refunds to a deadbeat spouse while a custodial parent has 
        to work 2 or 3 jobs to compensate for the shortfall in 
        providing for their children.
            (3) The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) program to intercept 
        the tax refunds of parents who owe child support arrears has 
        been successful in collecting a tenth of such arrears.
            (4) The Congress has periodically expanded eligibility for 
        the IRS tax refund intercept program. Initially, the program 
        was limited to intercepting Federal tax refunds owed to parents 
        on public assistance. In 1984, the Congress expanded the 
        program to cover parents not on public assistance. Finally, the 
        Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 made the program 
        permanent and expanded the program to cover parents of adult 
        children who are disabled.
            (5) The injustice to the custodial parent is the same 
        regardless of whether the child is disabled, non-disabled, a 
        minor, or an adult, so long as the child support obligation is 
        provided for by a court or administrative order. It is common 
        for parents to help their adult children finance a college 
        education, a wedding, or a first home. Some parents cannot 
        afford to do that because they are recovering from debt they 
        incurred to cover expenses that would have been covered if they 
        had been paid the child support owed to them in a timely 
        manner.
            (6) This Act would address this injustice by expanding the 
        program to cover parents of all adult children, regardless of 
        whether the child is disabled.
            (7) This Act does not create a cause of action for a 
        custodial parent to seek additional child support. This Act 
        merely helps the custodial parent recover debt they are owed 
        for a level of child support that was set by a court after both 
        sides had the opportunity to present their arguments about the 
        proper amount of child support.

SEC. 3. USE OF TAX REFUND INTERCEPT PROGRAM TO COLLECT PAST-DUE CHILD 
              SUPPORT ON BEHALF OF CHILDREN WHO ARE NOT MINORS.

    Section 464 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 664) is amended--
            (1) in subsection (a)(2)(A), by striking ``(as that term is 
        defined for purposes of this paragraph under subsection (c))''; 
        and
            (2) in subsection (c)--
                    (A) in paragraph (1)--
                            (i) by striking ``(1) Except as provided in 
                        paragraph (2), as used in'' and inserting 
                        ``In''; and
                            (ii) by inserting ``(whether or not a 
                        minor)'' after ``a child'' each place it 
                        appears; and
                    (B) by striking paragraphs (2) and (3).
                                 <all>