Back Child Support

My question involves child support in the State of: Michigan.

I was ordered to pay child support in November 08. The order started from the day my ex filed..Which almost a year the actual court date.

She was on state insurance at the time of the birth.

I went to court and started paying immediately. I have payed between 300 and 500 dollars every month since November 08. I paid 500 the first couple of months, but no less than 300 up to this date. (still paying) The actual support order is for $291

The FOC sends me to a show cause EVERY month. Instead of me just sending them a check, or making a payment in person - They give me a court date, I see the judge for approx. 5 minutes, make my payment, and leave.

Recently, I was notified that FOC would start garnishing my pay check $291 actual. $50 back pay... Why is this necessary when I make the payments every month in cash?

Also, I was sent a letter that my state taxes would be held after I filed for the amount of back support. The back support is $3,900 due to cost of birth and medical for the child.

I never got a letter from the Federal Govt. I just filed for my taxes and I am wondering is the Fed. Govt going to take my tax retrn even though I am making payments?

Thanks.

Yeap. Your tax refund can be intercepted if you owe past due child support - even if you're now paying on the arrears.

They can also garnish your wages even though you're paying each month.

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Quoting Dogmatique

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Yeap. Your tax refund can be intercepted if you owe past due child support - even if you're now paying on the arrears.

So will I get any kind of notification like I did with the Mi taxes? I filed a few days ago, but now I'm sitting on my hands wondering if I'll actually get the return or not?

They can also garnish your wages even though you're paying each month.

So now they will garnish my pay and I will still have to make payments in person??

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I never got a laywer because I feel like it's my child so I'll just pay up but there is no way I'll be able to afford double the payments

No - they won't be able to "double dip". If they're garnishing your wages, you won't be required to pay double every month. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear. They will garnish "instead of" the current method.

You NEED to take out your child support order, and take out all of your recent notifications and make sure they're not doing this. You can request an accounting from child support enforcement which will tell you what you've paid, what is still owed etc.

I was in a similar situation. I choose to borrow from my 401k and spread out my payments lower than what I was paying in weekly arrears to the child support agency. The good part is, the child support agency stop negative credit scores (in fact my score has gone up since I paid off the arrears) no more letters about my tax refund being used to payoff the arrears.

Bad news is, it took them 6 weeks to finally stop taking out money for arrears, but the web site does have me with a negative balance. So I give them a few weeks to see if they send me a refund check.

Not sure that any of this help, but I might give you an idea of paying it off through a loan of some kind.

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Quoting Pirro

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My question involves child support in the State of: Michigan.

I was ordered to pay child support in November 08. The order started from the day my ex filed..Which almost a year the actual court date.

She was on state insurance at the time of the birth.

I went to court and started paying immediately. I have payed between 300 and 500 dollars every month since November 08. I paid 500 the first couple of months, but no less than 300 up to this date. (still paying) The actual support order is for $291

The FOC sends me to a show cause EVERY month. Instead of me just sending them a check, or making a payment in person - They give me a court date, I see the judge for approx. 5 minutes, make my payment, and leave.

Recently, I was notified that FOC would start garnishing my pay check $291 actual. $50 back pay... Why is this necessary when I make the payments every month in cash?

Also, I was sent a letter that my state taxes would be held after I filed for the amount of back support. The back support is $3,900 due to cost of birth and medical for the child.

I never got a letter from the Federal Govt. I just filed for my taxes and I am wondering is the Fed. Govt going to take my tax retrn even though I am making payments?

Thanks.

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For the garnishment notice it is actually going to make it easier for you. You won't have to worry about making the payments it will be done automatically, and better yet, the garnishment will provide an official record of payments made.
It usually takes time for garnishments to begin, the best thing to do is to check your pay every week, if the garnishment hasn't started, pay as you always have, then when the garnishment starts you'll no longer have to pay cash.

The state may or may not intercept this years refund. After you have filed, there is a place on the IRS website where you can check to see where your refund is. If the state is going to be intercepting the refund, it will show up on that site.

You can also call the IRS Treasury Offset Call Center automated line at: 1-800-304-3107.

You enter your social security number at the correct prompt and it will let you know if an offset has been filed.

It's current as of the date that you call, so you may want to check it periodically.