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House Bill 1674 |
House Author: Jackson, Jim |
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Effective: 9-1-11 |
Senate Sponsor: Harris |
House Bill 1674 amends the Family Code, Insurance Code, Government Code, Tax Code, and Code of Criminal Procedure to revise procedures for establishing, modifying, and enforcing child support obligations. Among other provisions, the bill:
· extends the deadline by which an employer is required to send a statement pertaining to health insurance coverage status for an employee's child to the sender of an order or notice directing that the employer provide health insurance coverage to the child;
· clarifies that a cause of action in a suit for support of a minor or adult disabled child may be assigned only to the attorney general as the Title IV-D agency;
· authorizes the attorney general to file a child support review order that has the effect of modifying an existing order for child support to provide medical support for a child;
· authorizes the movant in a motion for enforcement in a suit affecting the parent-child relationship to attach to the motion a current copy of a payment record, authorizes the movant to subsequently update that payment record, and establishes the admissibility of the payment record;
· prohibits a court rendering a money judgment for child support arrearages from reducing or modifying the amount of arrearages, but authorizes the court to allow a counterclaim or offset;
· revises provisions specifying the types of real and personal property not exempt under the Texas Constitution or other law from attaching to a child support lien;
· authorizes the attorney general, not earlier than the 90th day after the date of death of an obligor in a Title IV-D case, to deliver a notice of levy to a financial institution in which the obligor was the sole owner of an account unless probate proceedings relating to the obligor's estate have commenced;
· establishes notification requirements for a financial institution that receives a notice of levy from the attorney general and authorizes a person who contests the levy to bring suit;
· decreases from 250 or more to 50 or more the number of employees that serves as the threshold above which an employer is required to remit payment of withheld earnings for child support by electronic funds transfer or electronic data interchange;
· authorizes the attorney general to establish and administer a child support arrearages payment incentive program;
· authorizes a child support agency to request a licensing authority to refuse to accept an application for issuance of an original license to an obligor who has failed to pay child support for six months or more and requires an authority that receives such a request to refuse to accept the application until being notified that certain conditions have been met;
· establishes that certain benefits or rights assigned by an insured, owner, or annuitant after a child support lien notice has been filed against the insured, owner, or annuitant by the attorney general continue to be subject to the child support lien after the date of assignment;
· entitles the attorney general's office to obtain from a state or federal law enforcement agency criminal history record information that relates to a person who owes child support in a Title IV-D case for the purposes of locating that person and establishing, modifying, or enforcing a child support obligation against that person;
· authorizes the attorney general to file a petition setting forth a claim to excess proceeds in a court that ordered the seizure of a person's real property to recover delinquent property taxes under a tax warrant or the sale of a person's real property ordered sold pursuant to foreclosure of a tax lien; and
· requires the proceeds of a sale of forfeited contraband by public auction to be distributed to the attorney general in an amount not to exceed the amount of child support arrearages identified in a child support lien if the attorney general has filed a child support lien in the forfeiture proceeding and after any required distributions to an interest holder.