Opinion ID: 2394749
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Determination of Collection Date for Offset Tax Refunds

Text: The parties both challenge the Superior Court's application of the Act to the rather complicated mechanics of the tax refund offset procedure. The Act provides that support debts previously incurred ... shall not be collected from any responsible parent while that parent receives public assistance for the benefit of any of his or her natural or adopted children.... 19 M.R.S.A. § 496 (Supp.1985-1986). The offset procedure is initiated in the spring of each year when the Department submits a list of support debtors to the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and sends a Notice of Offset to the support debtor. After December 15 each year, HHS sends the list of debtors to IRS, which compares the list of debtors with its own list of taxpayers entitled to federal income tax refunds. When the match is made, IRS offsets the debt against the refund, sends the amount of the debt to the Department, notifies the debtor that the offset has occurred, and later sends the debtor the balance of the refund, if any. By regulation the Department uses the date of the IRS offset notice as the collection date for purposes of section 496. Maine Child Support Enforcement Manual, Ch. IV, § A, at 6. The Plaintiffs argue that collection is an ongoing process beginning when a debtor's name is submitted to HHS and ending when the Maine Department of Human Services receives the offset amount from IRS. The Department contends that its selection of the date of the IRS offset notice as the date of collection is rational and prevents debtors from manipulating their financial and employment situations so as to receive public assistance for at least a portion of the time between the submittal of the debtor list to HHS and the actual offset. The Superior Court concluded that for purposes of section 496, collection began with the HHS submittal and ended with the IRS offset notice. Ordinarily, we give great deference to an agency's construction of a statute when that agency is charged with the statute's enforcement. Bar Harbor Banking & Trust Co. v. Superintendent of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, 471 A.2d 292, 296 (Me.1984). The agency's construction should be upheld unless it clearly violates the legislative intent. Id. We conclude that the Superior Court erred in finding that collection was an ongoing process. Whether for administrative convenience or for some other reason, the Department chose the easily identifiable point of time at which the IRS cuts off the debtor's right to receive his tax refund as determinative under section 496. From the debtor's standpoint, the debt has actually been collected at the time of the IRS offset notice. The Department's designation of the date of the offset notice as the date of collection does not violate the legislative intent of section 496. The language of the statute does not support the Superior Court's broad conclusion that collection is an ongoing process. Section 496 says only that support debts shall not be collected while the debtor receives public assistance. There is no language prohibiting the Department from taking any steps whatsoever to collect support debts while the debtor is receiving public assistance. The absence of such language, we think, argues strongly in favor of a narrower, not a broader, construction of section 496. See Amonte v. Amonte, 17 Mass.App. 621, 461 N.E.2d 826, 829-30 (1984). Given the statutory language, the Department's use of the date of the IRS offset notice as the collection date was not improper. The Superior Court erred in concluding otherwise, and we must vacate its order.