Passport cost $311k in back child support
 

our gov't does have its smart moments...

now, when you apply for some passports, they check to see if you owe any back child support, and that is how much your passport will be!

as a parent who has never received so much as $1.00 in support :mad:, i think its a wonderful tactic to help support mothers and fathers who are struggling day to day.

what amazed me the most about this article is one man, whose PARENTS paid $50k in back support for him. what the hell??

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20265037/?gt1=10252

What a great idea! Although it's too bad that after you pay the amount owed to date, you have a passport that you can use for the next 10 years and can dodge paying support until it's time to renew.

As for the "man" that had his parents pay the fine- that's a great example of helicopter parenting gone haywire. At some point in time you need to GROW UP and take care of yourself. But obviously, this boy doesn't think he needs to take care of his own children so he is selfish enough to expect his parents to bail him out (I doubt that was the first time).

very true...

i dont understand how you can live with yourself, owing THAT MUCH in back support, but hopping on a plane to live it up on a Caribbean island for 2 weeks vacation!

and as for that man with the helicopter parents, if you were so dead set on paying his $50k in support, why wait until now? if you had that much money set aside to bail his a** out of trouble, why not pay that money to the kids when they needed it...? those kids have been suffering for nothing :mad:

You don't know the whole story. While I agree -- people should *always* pay their child support, there's often a reason why they don't. Mom could have denied dad visitation and brainwashed the kids into thinking dad's a serial killer for all you know.

I'm sure that's not your situation, and really, if you wanted to go after your kids' deadbeat dad, you could hire an attorney to do so for you (or even work on contingency).

As someone who is currently owed about $45K in back support (for children who are 28 and 21 NOW), I would like to see this set so a person can't LEAVE the country even, if they owe. I am finally getting some $$ in bits and pieces after all these years.

my situation couldnt be more typical, except he decided to go and live the one place i cant chase him for support...jail. ive tried attorneys, ive tried everything. he is scott-free until he comes home. hes been away since 02, wont be home til 09. when he gets home, his tab will be close to $15k.

and yes, i do know some parents whose situation is complicated by a difficult custodial parent. but you cant NOT pay your support in VA, the courts see it as two completely different subjects. i still had to turn my child over for visitation even though he would not get a job and pay his support.

Well, I don't know the law in VA and wouldn't venture to tell you what it is. Here in Oklahoma, it's pretty much the same. I can see how your guy gets out of paying Child Support by being in prison. You can hardly blame him for that...

There are any number of ways for you to go after a non-incarcerated deadbeat parent, however. In Oklahoma, we have garnishments, you can file contempt charges against them (which are quasi-criminal and could involve jail time), you can keep them from getting their driver's license, etc.

Going after deadbeat moms and dads is going to be something I'll probably end up doing a lot of once I get my intern's license (next semester).

VA is one of those kooky commonwealth states. ive lived here my whole life, studied as a paralegal, and still dont pretend to know much!

one thing i love is the license suspensions.

Assuming the absent parent is working under the correct SSN that Support Enforcement has, then going after wages, tax returns would work. If they are paid under the table, then DCSE has little to go on.

All the custodial parent can do is keep fighting.

I work for Social Services and see this ALLLLLL the time.
LOVE the refund intercept and license suspension. :) Yay VA.

and the best part about that? when you do finally get pulled/catch a road block, they arrest you and your bail is set at whatever your back support is. a girlfriend i know was getting $12 a month in C.S., and when her ex got pulled, he had to cough up his $4500 owed, or spend a year in jail. funny how fast he found that money...

You know though, Kevin, that it doesn't entitle them to withhold the money right? Even if the kids think that Dad is a serial killer, they still have to eat.

Yah, but it doesn't provide the mom or dad with a lot of incentive to pay either.

There is probably some study that shows that the more time the non-custodial parent spends with his/her child the better the payment record.

I always thought that regardless of "custody" the parent that is paying child support should have to spend a significant amount of time with the child.

Its harder to neglect someone you see all the time. "out of sight, out of mind."

On the other hand, I always thought that the parent receiving the child support should be directly accountable for where the money is spent.

I am also generally in favor of a trust option where the money is in a custodial account either managed by a third party, or the custodial parent, but where there has to a record of where the money goes.

Keeps honest people honest.

Not always....in my daughters cases (both are in their 20s now)

my oldest daughter's father saw her every single visitation, holidays and then some. I kept a decent relationship with him. He paid his support ontime....until the day he and his second wife divorced. The support payments stopped. Come to find out she was the one writing the checks. She and I get along wonderfully (crazy isn't it :)) He continued to see her as dictated by our paternity agreement. And to date he owes me about $8,000.

Youngest daughter's father was court order no visitation. He pays only when the "state" finds him through his employer. To date he still owes around $35,000. She prefers to ignore his existence.

Lawyers want 1/3 of the amount due to them. The state will hunt these guys down for free eventually. I don't really need the money anymore, but I use it as a torture device anymore...and I admit it. :)

I'm not saying it's right, but if mom brainwashes the kids to not want custodial time and to fear dad, why in the hell is dad going to give money to someone who has done this to him and to kids who hate him?

Maybe it isn't "taking responsibility," but it sure is a lot more understandable.

This isn't an extreme hypo either. I see it happen a lot.

Not the case with our daughter's ex. He and/or his parents see his daughter a couple of times a week, and he hasn't paid a cent.

"I would like to see this set so a person can't LEAVE the country even, if they owe."

I kind of like that idea, but I'd change it around a little so that until he has paid up, don't let him back in.