[Congressional Bills 108th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1437 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







108th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1437

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


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                July 22 (legislative day, July 21), 2003

  Mr. Chafee introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
                  referred to the Committee on Finance

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 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.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Enforcing child support orders remains a serious 
        problem in the United States. There are approximately 
        17,100,000 active cases in which a child support order requires 
        a noncustodial parent to contribute to the support of his or 
        her child. Of the $24,700,000,000 owed in 2001 pursuant to such 
        orders, $14,200,000,000, or 57 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 his or her 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) 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, 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 provide such help because they are recovering from 
        debt incurred to cover expenses that would have been covered if 
        the parent had been paid the child support owed in a timely 
        manner.
            (6) This Act addresses such injustices by expanding the IRS 
        tax refund intercept 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 owed for a level 
        of child support that was set by a court after both sides had 
        the opportunity to present 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>