I 

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.

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Child Support Fairness 

5 and Tax Refund Interception Act of 2003’’. 

6 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

7 The Congress finds the following: 

8 (1) Enforcing child support orders remains a 

9 serious problem in the United States. There are ap10 proximately 12,000,000 active cases in which a child 
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1 support order requires a noncustodial parent to con2 tribute to the support of his or her child. Of the 

3 $22,000,000,000 owed in 1999 pursuant to such or4 ders, $12,000,000,000, or 54 percent, has been col5 lected. 

6 (2) It is an injustice for the Federal Govern7 ment to issue tax refunds to a deadbeat spouse while 

8 a custodial parent has to work 2 or 3 jobs to com9 pensate for the shortfall in providing for their chil10 dren. 

11 (3) The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) pro12 gram to intercept the tax refunds of parents who 

13 owe child support arrears has been successful in col14 lecting a tenth of such arrears. 

15 (4) The Congress has periodically expanded eli16 gibility for the IRS tax refund intercept program. 

17 Initially, the program was limited to intercepting 

18 Federal tax refunds owed to parents on public as19 sistance. In 1984, the Congress expanded the pro20 gram to cover parents not on public assistance. Fi21 nally, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 

22 1990 made the program permanent and expanded 

23 the program to cover parents of adult children who 

24 are disabled. 
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1 (5) The injustice to the custodial parent is the 

2 same regardless of whether the child is disabled, 

3 non-disabled, a minor, or an adult, so long as the 

4 child support obligation is provided for by a court or 

5 administrative order. It is common for parents to 

6 help their adult children finance a college education, 

7 a wedding, or a first home. Some parents cannot af8 ford to do that because they are recovering from 

9 debt they incurred to cover expenses that would have 

10 been covered if they had been paid the child support 

11 owed to them in a timely manner. 

12 (6) This Act would address this injustice by ex13 panding the program to cover parents of all adult 

14 children, regardless of whether the child is disabled. 

15 (7) This Act does not create a cause of action 

16 for a custodial parent to seek additional child sup17 port. This Act merely helps the custodial parent re18 cover debt they are owed for a level of child support 

19 that was set by a court after both sides had the op20 portunity to present their arguments about the prop21 er amount of child support. 
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1 SEC. 3. USE OF TAX REFUND INTERCEPT PROGRAM TO 

2 COLLECT PAST-DUE CHILD SUPPORT ON BE3 HALF OF CHILDREN WHO ARE NOT MINORS. 

4 Section 464 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 

5 664) is amended—

6 (1) in subsection (a)(2)(A), by striking ‘‘(as 

7 that term is defined for purposes of this paragraph 

8 under subsection (c))’’; and 

9 (2) in subsection (c)—

10 (A) in paragraph (1)—

11 (i) by striking ‘‘(1) Except as pro12 vided in paragraph (2), as used in’’ and in13 serting ‘‘In’’; and 

14 (ii) by inserting ‘‘(whether or not a 

15 minor)’’ after ‘‘a child’’ each place it ap16 pears; and 

17 (B) by striking paragraphs (2) and (3).

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