Rule could leave child-support debtors no income
By DANIEL WAGNER
AP Business Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Old child support debts could cost thousands of poor men their only income next year because of a policy aimed at reducing the cost to the government of mailing paper checks to pay federal benefits.
The Treasury Department will start paying benefits electronically next March. It will stop issuing the paper checks that many people rely on to safeguard a portion of their benefits from states trying to collect back child support.
States can freeze the bank accounts of people who owe child support. A separate Treasury Department rule, in place since last May in a preliminary form, guarantees them the power to freeze Social Security, disability and veterans' benefits that have been deposited into those accounts.
Once paper checks are eliminated, about 275,000 people could lose access to all of their income, advocates say.
"It's kind of Orwellian, what's being set up here for a segment of the population," says Johnson Tyler, an attorney who represents poor and disabled people collecting federal benefits. "It's going to be a nightmare in about a year unless something changes."
In many cases, the bills are decades old and the children long grown. Much of the money owed is interest and fees that add up when men are unable to pay because they are disabled, institutionalized or imprisoned.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46539868
Is this the way to solve the issue?
By DANIEL WAGNER
AP Business Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Old child support debts could cost thousands of poor men their only income next year because of a policy aimed at reducing the cost to the government of mailing paper checks to pay federal benefits.
The Treasury Department will start paying benefits electronically next March. It will stop issuing the paper checks that many people rely on to safeguard a portion of their benefits from states trying to collect back child support.
States can freeze the bank accounts of people who owe child support. A separate Treasury Department rule, in place since last May in a preliminary form, guarantees them the power to freeze Social Security, disability and veterans' benefits that have been deposited into those accounts.
Once paper checks are eliminated, about 275,000 people could lose access to all of their income, advocates say.
"It's kind of Orwellian, what's being set up here for a segment of the population," says Johnson Tyler, an attorney who represents poor and disabled people collecting federal benefits. "It's going to be a nightmare in about a year unless something changes."
In many cases, the bills are decades old and the children long grown. Much of the money owed is interest and fees that add up when men are unable to pay because they are disabled, institutionalized or imprisoned.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46539868
Is this the way to solve the issue?