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1 1 (April 9, 2020)

handle is hein.crs/goveaxd0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional .Research Service Informing the legislative debate since 1914 COVID-19 and Direct Payments to Individuals: Federal Tax Offset for Past-Due Child Support April 9, 2020 The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act; P.L. 116-136, enacted March 27, 2020) includes direct payments to individuals in 2020-referred to by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as economic impact payments. These payments are structured as tax credits automatically advanced to households that meet certain criteria. Section 2201(d) of the CARES Act provides that these payments cannot be offset for past due debts to federal agencies, past due state income tax debt, or unemployment compensation debt, but it does not exempt those payments from offset for past-due child support for cases enforced by the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program. As of the date of this Insight, the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) has not provided public guidance as to the offset procedures that are to be used for these payments. To provide context for the process that ultimately is used, this Insight provides a brief summary of how the federal tax refund offset mechanism currently operates, and historical background on how it was used to withhold past-due child support from similar direct payments to individuals-the 2008 IRS economic stimulus payments. According to OCSE, the offset of these payments resulted in an additional $863 million in collections in processing year 2008, which was an 88.4% increase relative to 2007. The offset of CARES Act direct payments to individuals might also be expected to result in increased collections for past-due child support though the CSE program. Overview of the CSE Federal Tax Offset All 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and 60 tribal nations operate CSE programs pursuant to Title IV-D of the Social Security Act. The program is federally administered by OCSE in the Administration for Children and Families (Department of Health and Human Services). The program is estimated to handle the majority of all child support cases; the remaining cases are handled by private attorneys, collection agencies, or through mutual agreements between parents. In FY2018, the program served 14.7 million children (about 20% of children in the United States) and collected an estimated $34 billion in child support, of which $7.7 billion was for Congressional Research Service https://crsreports. congress.gov IN11322 CRS INSIGHT Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress