UkrainianGuy
11-09-2008, 11:28 PM
read this in the latest copy of the COFFEE NEWS.. unreal!
Homeland Security has announced rules requiring passports for all Americans entering the country even if in the past travel to places such as Canada had not required such identification. Quite apart from many debatable issues the rules raise, they also force attention to an obscure regulation tying passports to child support payments.
The new passport requirements will require a reform in laws regulating issue of passports to parents (mostly men) who for any reason have an arrears in child support payments - and most affected are not necessarily deadbeat dads evading or ignoring their obligations.
People most affected are those who do work, do make child support payments faithfully, and because of an earlier accumulation of some arrearage find themselves unable to ever catch up.
Many do not realize that an arrears of greater than $5,000 allows states to request that the Federal government refuse issue of passports to the person said to owe the money. This was a law passed in 2002 aimed primarily at deadbeat dads with money and a desire to either flee the country to avoid enforcement or to travel abroad without regard to their obligations.
However, the main people this law has hurt are middle- and working-class men and women who for reasons ranging from joblessness to financial setbacks accumulated arrearages. The little-known passport restriction has cost the jobs of thousands of people whose employment had taken them across borders.
Child support arrearage is a major national problem, and measures to enforce payment or collection are largely supported by the American public. Anecdotal reports of wealthy men refusing to pay support, leaving the country to avoid child or spousal support, hiding money in offshore accounts and investments, and other dodges properly arouse public resentment and anger.
However, in many cases, excessive sums are alleged against non-custodial parents whose payments falter because of a change of work resulting in a lowering of income without a concomitant adjustment of support payments, permanent or periodic joblessness without adjustment of support requirements, or financial difficulties of all kinds.
Advocates of unrelenting ruthlessness in child support collection point to ways a non-custodial parent can go to court to request adjustments when such events occur. However, the process is expensive and slow, and especially in the cases of parents living in different states, sometimes impossible to navigate. People under financial distress lack the ability to use legal remedies, and thus are then wrapped in a spiraling back child support account total.
In most states, child support payments in arrears are charged with interest against the non-custodial parents account at amounts of 10 per cent or more, compounded daily or monthly. Interest rapidly builds the claim to sums many times the actual support payment arrearage. After a while, interest alone on the account adds more than the court-ordered support payment.
The interest charged has been for at least six years more than twice the average national mortgage interest rate. In some states, private lenders levying a comparable interest rate would be liable for criminal usury complaints.
Many non-custodial parents find themselves unable to ever pay off the total charges because the amount on which the interest is charged has far exceeded the actual monthly payments made for child support. The actual amount owed, therefore, continues to grow rather than diminish despite faithful effort to pay support and something against arrears.
Against this backdrop, Congress in 2002 authorized the Internal Revenue Service to block passport issue to anyone with an arrearage - including interest - of $5,000 or more. Each states agency responsible for child support payments would be allowed to invoke the passport blockage rule or not.
There is no appeal if a passport is refused because of child support payment arrearage. Regardless of the effect the blockage has on a persons employment or ability to make a living to pay child support, once the block is in place it is virtually impossible to change. Even if the arrearage is cleared, obtaining a passport afterward takes many months or is still denied.
With Homeland Security new action requiring passports for all persons effective January 23, 2007, the effect on this class of working people will be draconian. Congress should revise its original laws regarding passport issue to address the problem before Homeland Security’s regulation is allowed to take effect.
Homeland Security has announced rules requiring passports for all Americans entering the country even if in the past travel to places such as Canada had not required such identification. Quite apart from many debatable issues the rules raise, they also force attention to an obscure regulation tying passports to child support payments.
The new passport requirements will require a reform in laws regulating issue of passports to parents (mostly men) who for any reason have an arrears in child support payments - and most affected are not necessarily deadbeat dads evading or ignoring their obligations.
People most affected are those who do work, do make child support payments faithfully, and because of an earlier accumulation of some arrearage find themselves unable to ever catch up.
Many do not realize that an arrears of greater than $5,000 allows states to request that the Federal government refuse issue of passports to the person said to owe the money. This was a law passed in 2002 aimed primarily at deadbeat dads with money and a desire to either flee the country to avoid enforcement or to travel abroad without regard to their obligations.
However, the main people this law has hurt are middle- and working-class men and women who for reasons ranging from joblessness to financial setbacks accumulated arrearages. The little-known passport restriction has cost the jobs of thousands of people whose employment had taken them across borders.
Child support arrearage is a major national problem, and measures to enforce payment or collection are largely supported by the American public. Anecdotal reports of wealthy men refusing to pay support, leaving the country to avoid child or spousal support, hiding money in offshore accounts and investments, and other dodges properly arouse public resentment and anger.
However, in many cases, excessive sums are alleged against non-custodial parents whose payments falter because of a change of work resulting in a lowering of income without a concomitant adjustment of support payments, permanent or periodic joblessness without adjustment of support requirements, or financial difficulties of all kinds.
Advocates of unrelenting ruthlessness in child support collection point to ways a non-custodial parent can go to court to request adjustments when such events occur. However, the process is expensive and slow, and especially in the cases of parents living in different states, sometimes impossible to navigate. People under financial distress lack the ability to use legal remedies, and thus are then wrapped in a spiraling back child support account total.
In most states, child support payments in arrears are charged with interest against the non-custodial parents account at amounts of 10 per cent or more, compounded daily or monthly. Interest rapidly builds the claim to sums many times the actual support payment arrearage. After a while, interest alone on the account adds more than the court-ordered support payment.
The interest charged has been for at least six years more than twice the average national mortgage interest rate. In some states, private lenders levying a comparable interest rate would be liable for criminal usury complaints.
Many non-custodial parents find themselves unable to ever pay off the total charges because the amount on which the interest is charged has far exceeded the actual monthly payments made for child support. The actual amount owed, therefore, continues to grow rather than diminish despite faithful effort to pay support and something against arrears.
Against this backdrop, Congress in 2002 authorized the Internal Revenue Service to block passport issue to anyone with an arrearage - including interest - of $5,000 or more. Each states agency responsible for child support payments would be allowed to invoke the passport blockage rule or not.
There is no appeal if a passport is refused because of child support payment arrearage. Regardless of the effect the blockage has on a persons employment or ability to make a living to pay child support, once the block is in place it is virtually impossible to change. Even if the arrearage is cleared, obtaining a passport afterward takes many months or is still denied.
With Homeland Security new action requiring passports for all persons effective January 23, 2007, the effect on this class of working people will be draconian. Congress should revise its original laws regarding passport issue to address the problem before Homeland Security’s regulation is allowed to take effect.