[mcdode]

I had part of my federal return go to child support which was fine with me. What I don't unnderstand is that I am in Idaho child's mother is in Calif. So Calif intercepted the payment on April 27, 2015 and held it until June 30, 2015. In that time I had contempt charges etc.. Because I wasn't given any credit towards my back support in between April and June. Since Calif released it and notified Idaho they back dated it as receiving it on April 27th. My question is:
How can any financial record keeper or institution on any level. Not give the credit between April 27 and June 30 yet when notified it was clear on June 30th that Idaho is able to put this in their accounting as received on April 27th? I know if I went to court every judge in the USA will ask them why did you charge him with contempt when your financial records state it was received on April 27th? I have never heard of anyone anywhere that is able to claim someone has not paid there bill lets charge him late charges and yet the pay history states he's was not behind on order to receive those charges?

[AK lawyer]

There are at least three agencies involved:
The IRS;
The California child support enforcement agency; and
The Idaho court.

Although California intercepted the payment from the IRS, it appears that the paperwork and the actual money transfer wasn't actually completed immediately and the court is likely to find this reasonable. This, I'm guessing, the contempt proceeding in the Idaho court would be continued until the paperwork was complete.

If you have, or had, a court hearing in Idaho, you should tell the judge that the tax refund has been intercepted, being prepared to offer the judge documentation. That should stay the contempt proceeding, assuming that all past-due CS has now been taken care of.

[ScottGem]

I can answer you in one word: bureaucracy!

My first question to you is when were you aware that CA had gotten your return and what proof do you have for it? I do not find it surprising that CA took 2 months to process the payment. I actually do find it surprising and you should be thankful for it, that ID backdated the payment to April 27.

I agree with AK that if you were cited for contempt, it should have been a simple matter to inform the court that the tax return had been intercepted and to ask for a stay or extension while it was being processed.

Of course the question of why you were behind in the first place comes into play.

But I've encountered several instances where fees and interest were charged while a payment was being processed and then have those fees credited when the payment was recorded and backdated to the date received. The problem here is we don't know when ID was notified that payment was received.

[AK lawyer]

There are at least three agencies involved:
The IRS;
The California child support enforcement agency; and
The Idaho court.

...

Now that I think it through, there would be even more agencies involved also:
the Idaho child support agency (in behalf of the custodial parent)
Acting through its attorney (state attorney general's office perhaps).

So the bureaucratic process to which ScottGem referred goes something like this:

The Idaho child support agency &/or California child support agency notifies the IRS to intercept the tax refund. IRS respond that so much was intercepted. The two state CS agencies tell each other of the interception. They then tell the Idaho public lawyer asking for the contempt order, who then notifies the Idaho court. Each step in this process can take time.

[cdad]

Let me try to explain it to you in the hopes that you get a better understanding of how it all works.

When there is a tax refund intercept they have no idea if it is legitimate or not. You might be wondering how that can be. What can happen is that there could be another party that has a claim on the money. They could file for injured spouse status and then a portion of the money has to be returned.

Given that as an example then the amount taken is an informal credit. You cant be given full credit until everything clears and there is no other claims on the money.

That is the why and how they were able to hold the money in limbo until it cleared. Then post it as being paid by backdating to the original date of the intercept.

As far as contempt charges it appears you werent paying on time in the first place and that is why it had gotten this far.


Which state is handleing the child support case now? Im asking because if it is idaho then they do not charge interest on arrears. If it is california then they charge up to 10% on arrears.

You need to stay on top of all this.