The CSA would also be responsible for the collection of maintenance owed by non-resident parents. The apparent simplicity of these operating principles obscured a radical and significant disjunction in the history of child support. The subsequent troubled history of the CSA serves as ample testimony to this, and the Agency's difficulties been described elsewhere and at length. The CSA can be seen, however, to have failed in all the principal areas of its operation: the assessment, collection and enforcement of child support.
Its rigid, non-discretionary formula for the assessment of child maintenance was almost immediately condemned as unfair and unjust towards non-resident parents typically fathers and legislation since has introduced a greater element of discretion. If the modern, bureaucratic welfare state has repeatedly failed to administer a simple and effective system of child support, have previous agencies performed any better?
The state in various forms has long been involved in matters of child support. An important distinction between the past and the present is that until the twentieth century virtually all cases of child support involved the illegitimate children of unmarried, rather than divorced, parents.
In medieval England, such maintenance cases fell under the jurisdiction of the church courts, since canon law placed all parents under a duty to support their children. With the decline of the influence of church courts in the sixteenth century, child support became a matter for secular magistrates' courts and the so-called 'Old Poor Law'. This existed between the late-sixteenth century and , and comprised a statutory framework of laws passed primarily between and These placed an obligation upon local communities to care for their own 'impotent' or deserving poor.
This duty was to be administered by England's 10, parishes, and was to be funded where necessary by a local property tax, or poor rate. By the eighteenth century, this collective system of welfare provision described by historians as a 'welfare state in miniature' had evolved into a system that could provide comprehensive assistance to categories of the poor such as children, the sick, the elderly, and the unemployed.
It was an Act of that first alluded to an illegitimate child's existing, implicit right to welfare assistance. The Act sought to displace the financial responsibility for maintenance away from the parish rate payers and onto the child's parents. It thus created an explicit legal and administrative mechanism for child support, based upon the jurisdiction of magistrates and the administrative infrastructure of the parish.
By the early-nineteenth century, the system was operating as follows: an unmarried mother in need could approach the parish in which her child had been born.
She was then taken before two magistrates where she was expected to swear on oath as to the identity of the putative father. He was then placed under an 'affiliation order' to pay the parish a sum 'weekly and every weekfor and towards the keeping, sustentation and maintenance of the said bastard child'. The mother was also expected to pay a weekly sum, but only 'in case she shall not nurse and take care of the child herself'.
Mothers rarely paid such a sum, however, and the law had probably come to reflect what had always been a de facto division of parental labour: mother as parent with care, and father as financial provider. The putative father could be punished by three months imprisonment for non-payment of maintenance.
Significantly, the mother was entitled to receive the affiliation sum, whether the putative father paid it or not; the difference being paid from the parish rates. The mother was paid this allowance typically until the child turned seven years old, although sometimes for longer. There are obvious parallels between the contemporary system of child support, operating since , and that in existence between and A mother requiring welfare assistance under both systems was compelled to seek maintenance from the putative father of her child, since under both systems parents were under a legal obligation to support and maintain their children.
However, there are also significant differences. Under the Old Poor Law, the administration of child support was devolved to the localized control of parish authorities and jurisdiction for making maintenance orders was in the hands of local magistrates. By contrast, the CSA derives its legal authority from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions formerly the Secretary of State for Social Security and its administration is centralized and bureaucratic.
These are important structural points. Of perhaps more significance, however, are the differences between the two systems in operational terms. A direct comparison between the CSA and the Old Poor Law is difficult because poor-law administration varied from parish to parish.
Its statutory framework had created what was, in effect, a national system, but parochial practice inevitably reflected the welfare needs of individual communities and local customary practices. These were further conditioned by prevailing socio-economic and demographic conditions. To resolve some of the problems associated with P.
In addition, P. It also authorized the payment of funds to cover specified costs incurred by the states during July in a good faith effort to implement specified CSE programs. Provisions relating to the garnishment of a federal employee's wages for child support were amended to 1 include employees of the District of Columbia; 2 specify the conditions and procedures to be followed to serve garnishments on federal agencies; 3 authorize the issuance of garnishment regulations by the three branches of the federal government and by the District of Columbia; 29 and 4 clarify several terms used in the statute.
State Medicaid agencies were allowed to enter into cooperative agreements with any appropriate agency of any state, including the CSE agency, for assistance with the enforcement and collection of medical support obligations. Incentives were also made available to localities making child support collections for states and for states securing collections on behalf of other states.
Pursuant to P. Section b of the Social Security Act was restored in by P. Federal matching funds were also made available for child support enforcement duties performed by certain court personnel. Finally, the law provided state and local CSE agencies access to wage information held by the Social Security Administration and state employment security agencies for use in establishing and enforcing child support obligations.
Second, it allowed states to receive incentive payments on all AFDC collections, not just interstate collections. Third, as of October 1, , states were required to claim reimbursement for expenditures within two years, with some exceptions.
First, the IRS was authorized to withhold all or part of certain individuals' federal income tax refunds for collection of delinquent child support obligations on behalf of AFDC families. Third, for non-AFDC cases, CSE agencies were required to collect fees from absent parents who were delinquent in their child support payments. Fourth, child support obligations assigned to the state no longer were dischargeable in bankruptcy proceedings.
Fifth, states were required to withhold a portion of unemployment benefits from noncustodial parents delinquent in their support payments. The provision for reimbursement of costs of certain court personnel that exceed the amount of funds spent by a state on similar court expenses during calendar year was repealed.
States were allowed to collect spousal support in certain non-AFDC cases. As of October 1, , members of the uniformed services on active duty were required to make allotments from their pay when support arrearages reached the equivalent of a two-month delinquency.
Beginning October 1, , states were allowed to reimburse themselves for AFDC grants paid to families for the first month in which the collection of child support was sufficient to make a family ineligible for AFDC.
In effect this provision stipulated that child support debts in the case of non-AFDC families could not be discharged in bankruptcy proceedings. The remaining amount was divided between the state and the federal governments according to the state's AFDC federal matching rate.
For purposes of computing the medical expense deduction for years after , each parent was allowed to claim the medical expenses that he or she paid for the child.
The practices required are already available in some States and used to varying degrees. The Child Support Enforcement Amendments of prescribe minimum requirements for the procedures while offering the States significant operational flexibility. All states were required to enact statutes to improve enforcement mechanisms, including 1 mandatory income withholding procedures; 2 expedited processes for establishing and enforcing support orders; 3 state income tax refund interceptions; 4 liens against real and personal property, security, or bonds to ensure compliance with support obligations; and 5 reports of support delinquency information to consumer reporting agencies.
State law had to allow for the bringing of paternity actions any time prior to a child's 18 th birthday and all support orders issued or modified after October 1, , had to include a provision for wage withholding. States were required to pass incentives through to local CSE agencies if these agencies had accumulated child support enforcement costs.
Annual state audits were replaced with audits conducted at least once every three years. The focus of the audits was altered to evaluate a state's effectiveness on the basis of program performance as well as operational compliance.
The federal government could suspend imposition of a penalty based on a state's filing of, and complying with, an acceptable corrective action plan. They found a particularly receptive audience of women politicians and a Reagan administration seeking a second term in office.
The clientele merger altered the fundamental character of the child support enforcement program. States were required to apply a host of enforcement techniques to interstate cases as well as intrastate cases. Both states involved in an interstate case could take credit for the collection when reporting total collections for the purpose of calculating incentives.
Special demonstration grants were authorized beginning in to fund innovative methods of interstate enforcement and collection. Federal audits were to be focused on states' effectiveness in establishing and enforcing obligations across state lines.
Several specific requirements were directed at improving state services to non-AFDC families. All of the mandatory practices had to be made available for both types of cases. The interception of federal income tax refunds was extended to non-AFDC cases.
Incentive payments for non-AFDC cases became available for the first time to apply to refunds payable after December 31, , and before January 1, ; this provision was made permanent by P.
States were required to continue child support services to families terminated from the welfare rolls without charging an application fee. States were required to 1 collect support in certain foster care cases; 2 collect spousal support in addition to child support where both are due in a case; 3 notify AFDC recipients, at least yearly, of the collections made on their behalf; 4 establish state commissions to study the operation of the state's child support system and report findings to the state's governor; 5 formulate guidelines for determining appropriate child support obligation amounts and distribute the guidelines to judges and other individuals who possess authority to establish obligation amounts; 6 offset the costs of the program by charging various fees to non-AFDC families and delinquent nonresident parents; 7 allow families whose AFDC eligibility was terminated as a result of the payment of child support to remain eligible to receive Medicaid for four months expired on October 1, ; later made permanent by P.
The Federal Parent Locator Service was made more accessible and effective in locating absent parents. Under this new requirement, state laws had to provide for either parent to apply for modification of an existing order with notice provided to the other parent. No modification was permitted before the date of this notification.
It is now generally agreed that both parents should be responsible for the well-being of their children and that family well-being may be enhanced if needy mothers work rather than stay at home with their children, provided that adequate child care is available. Key child support provisions included the following:. Judges and other officials were required to use state guidelines for child support unless they rebutted the guidelines by a written finding that applying them would be unjust or inappropriate in a particular case.
States were required to review guidelines for awards every four years. Beginning five years after enactment, states generally had to review and, if necessary, adjust individual case awards every three years for AFDC cases.
The same applied to other CSE cases, except review and adjustment was at the request of a parent. States were required to meet federal standards for the establishment of paternity.
They could use a PEP that was based on data that pertained solely to the CSE program or they could use a PEP that was based on data that pertained to the state population as a whole.
In effect, the PEP compares paternities established during the fiscal year with the number of nonmarital births during the preceding fiscal year. States were mandated to require all parties in a contested paternity case to take a genetic test upon request of any party. The child support enforcement disregard authorized under the Deficit Reduction Act of was clarified so that it applied to a payment made by the noncustodial parent in the month it was due even if it was received in a subsequent month.
The Secretary of HHS was required to set time limits within which states had to accept and respond to requests for assistance in establishing and enforcing support orders as well as time limits within which child support payments collected by the state CSE agency had to be distributed to the families to whom they were owed. Every state that did not have a statewide automated tracking and monitoring system in effect had to submit an advance planning document that met federal requirements by October 1, The Secretary was required to approve each document within nine months after submission.
By October 1, , every state had to have an approved system in effect. A Commission on Interstate Child Support was created to hold national conferences on interstate child support enforcement reform and to report to Congress no later than October 1, , on recommendations for improvements in the system and revisions in the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act.
Amounts spent by states for interstate demonstration projects were required to be excluded from calculating the amount of the states' incentive payments. The Secretaries of Labor and HHS were required to enter into an agreement to give the Federal Parent Locator Service prompt access to wage and unemployment compensation claims information useful in locating absent parents.
With respect to CSE cases, each state was required to provide for immediate wage withholding in the case of orders that were issued or modified on or after the first day of the 25 th month beginning after the date of enactment unless 1 one of the parties demonstrated, and the court found, that there was good cause not to require such withholding; or 2 there was a written agreement between both parties providing for an alternative arrangement. Prior law requirements for mandatory wage withholding in cases where payments were in arrears applied to orders that were not subject to immediate wage withholding.
States were required to provide for immediate wage withholding for all support orders initially issued on or after January 1, , regardless of whether a parent had applied for CSE services. No new power was granted to the states to require participation by noncustodial parents.
The Secretary of HHS was required to collect and maintain state-by-state statistics on paternity establishment, location of absent parents for the purpose of establishing a support obligation, enforcement of a child support obligation, and location of absent parents for the purpose of enforcing or modifying an established obligation.
Each state was mandated, in the administration of any law involving the issuance of a birth certificate, to require each parent to furnish his or her Social Security number SSN , unless the state found good cause for not requiring the parent to furnish it.
The SSN was required to be in the birth record but not on the birth certificate, and the use of the SSN obtained through the birth record was restricted to CSE purposes, except under certain circumstances. Each state was required to inform families receiving AFDC of the amount of support collected on their behalf on a monthly basis, rather than annually as provided under prior law. States had the option to provide quarterly notification if the Secretary of HHS determined that monthly reporting imposed an unreasonable administrative burden.
This provision was effective four years after the date of enactment. The Medicaid transition benefit in child support cases was extended from October 1, to October 1, Congress was concerned that the IV-D program, created in as a federal-state partnership primarily to recoup welfare debt, was falling short of its mandate to successfully locate noncustodial parents, establish paternity and support orders, and enforce those orders. Interstate Commission [on Child Support] issued its report and recommendations [in ], the program has matured into one that does reasonably well at collecting support, and is now focused on supportive measures for both custodial and non-custodial parents to ensure that they have the tools with which to provide financial, and emotional, support to their children.
As the next wave of changes moves the program to a more holistic, neutral approach to supporting families, it is well to remember and understand how the successes over the past twenty years are providing the platform for our next level of program reforms. A federal income tax refund offset was not permissible if the relevant child had reached the age of majority, even if the arrearages accrued while the child was still a minor, unless the child now adult had a current support order and was disabled, as defined under the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance OASDI or Supplemental Security Income SSI programs.
The IRS offset could be used for spousal support when spousal and child support are included in the same support order.
The existence of the Interstate Child Support Commission was extended from July 1, , to July 1, , and the commission was required to submit its report no later than May 1, The commission was allowed to hire its own staff.
The act also required states to adopt laws to ensure the compliance of health insurers and employers in carrying out court or administrative orders for medical child support and included a provision that prohibited health insurers from denying coverage to children who were not living with the covered individual or born outside marriage. Nonetheless, P. It required tribunals of each state to enforce, according to such state's terms, a child support order issued by a court defined to also include an administrative authority of another state, if 1 the issuing state's tribunal had subject matter jurisdiction to hear the matter and enter an order; 2 the issuing state's tribunal had personal jurisdiction over the parties; and 3 reasonable notice and the opportunity to be heard was given to the parties.
The issuing tribunal retained continuing, exclusive jurisdiction over the order as long as the child or at least one of the parties resided in the issuing state, unless the tribunal of another state, acting in accordance with P. However, the power to modify another state's support order was restricted. In addition, child support and alimony payments were made priority claims and custodial parents were able to appear in bankruptcy court to protect their interests without paying a fee or meeting any local rules for attorney appearances.
The majority of these enhancements were patterned after successful CSE initiatives pioneered by the States. The summary below organizes these changes into several major categories. The rules governing how child support collections are distributed among the federal government, state governments, and families that are on or have been on welfare were substantially changed.
Instead, payments to families that leave welfare are more generous. By October 1, , states had to distribute to the family current support and arrearages that accrued after the family left welfare before the state could be reimbursed for welfare costs.
By October 1, , states also were required to distribute to the family arrearages that accrued before the family began receiving welfare before the state could be reimbursed. These new rules, however, did not apply to collections made by intercepting tax refunds.
The result of these changes was that states were required to pay a higher fraction of child support collections on arrearages to families that have left welfare by making those payments to families first before the state. The new law required that if this change in policy resulted in states losing money relative to current law, the federal government would reimburse states for any losses.
During the post-Depression era, the United States enacted federal legislation establishing the forerunner of today's welfare system. The program was originally initiated to provide all dependent children more stability through financial aid via Title IV-A of the Social Security Act of Over the years, public attitudes towards assistance programs changed. What was once a noble cause- supporting families - became the focus of intense criticism.
It was suggested that the AFDC program created welfare dependency and families had no incentive to leave the system. Many argued that the welfare system, designed to support children who resided in one-parent households, was becoming an undue financial burden on tax-payers.
The Registrar may not be required to make a new child support assessment and start a new child support period when the ATO issues an income tax assessment for the latest year of income that ended during the existing child support period in the following circumstances:.
The first exception is where the tax assessment could not affect the rate of child support payable, for example because the parent's income continues to be below the self-support amount CSA Act section 34A 3 a. As Casey's income continues to be below the self-support amount and will not affect the rate of child support payable, the Registrar is not required to make a new assessment and start a new child support period.
Casey's income will be used in the new child support period which will commence after the end of the 15 month period or after George lodges a tax return with an adjusted taxable income that affects the rate of child support payable whichever is earlier. As Sarah's income is lower than the income that is currently used in the assessment, and this will affect the rate of child support payable, the Registrar is required to make a new assessment and start a new child support period from 1 August The second exception is where a new child support period has already started during the income year.
For example, a new child support period has started because the Registrar has accepted a new agreement, or the other parent's income tax assessment for that year has already started a new child support period. Peta lodges her tax return and, on 28 September , her tax assessment becomes available. When the assessment was made, an income determined by the Registrar will have been used for the parent or parents whose income tax assessment had not yet issued.
When the parent's income tax assessment subsequently issues for the same year, it does not trigger a new child support period. The income tax assessment is not for a financial year that ended during the current child support period.
The Registrar will amend the existing assessment by replacing the Registrar determined income. The assessment continues and applies to the same child support period.
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