INSIGHTi

Overview of Child Support Enforcement
Access to Taxpayer Data and the Tribal Child
Support Enforcement Act (S. 534)
September 13, 2021
The Tribal Child Support Enforcement Act (S. 534), which passed the Senate on July 13, 2021, would
al ow greater data sharing that could provide tribal Child Support Enforcement (CSE) programs with
comparable access to taxpayer data currently provided to state and local CSE programs for location,
establishment, and enforcement efforts. The bil would also al ow contractors of state, local, and tribal
child support agencies to have comparable access to tax data that employees of these agencies have for
child support purposes.
This Insight provides background on the CSE program and summarizes the changes that would be made
by S. 534.
CSE Program Overview
Al 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 (SSA). The program is federal y
administered by the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) in the Administration for Children and
Families (Department of Health and Human Services). The program services include parent location, the
initial establishment and review and modification of child support orders, the collection and distribution
of child support payments, and the establishment and enforcement of medical support. CSE is estimated
to handle the majority of al child support cases; the remaining cases are handled by private attorneys, by
collection agencies, or through mutual agreements between parents. In FY2020, the program was
estimated to serve 13.8 mil ion children (about 19% of children in the United States) and collected an
estimated $37 bil ion in child support, of which nearly $11 bil ion was for obligations that were past-due
(arrears). The amount of arrears paid represents about 9% of the $115 bil ion in cumulative arrears owed
to cases enforced by the program.
Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov
IN11748
CRS INSIGHT

Prepared for Members and
Committees of Congress

---

Congressional Research Service
2
CSE Access to and Use of Federal Tax Data under Current Law
Certain CSE services are supported via the exchange of federal tax data. For instance, such data are
exchanged with state and local CSE agencies to locate noncustodial parents (via external locate requests)
and to verify annual wages earned, general y for the purposes of establishing or modifying a support
order. Tax data are also exchanged with state and local programs as part of the Federal Tax Refund Offset
Program (FOP), which withholds past-due support from federal income tax refunds before they are
issued. The FOP is authorized in SSA Section 464, and Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 6402(c),
and operates through a partnership between OCSE and the Department of the Treasury.
Under current law, the sharing of data used by FOP, and for other specified purposes, is general y
governed by IRC Section 6103. Under IRC Section 6103(l)(6), the IRS may disclose to federal, state, and
local child enforcement agencies, if requested, specific tax data on any individual with respect to
whom child support obligations are sought to be established or enforced, or any individual owed child
support, for the specified use of establishing or collecting those child support obligations, or locating that
individual. Information that may be disclosed includes social security numbers (SSNs), addresses, tax
filing statuses, amounts and nature of income, and the number of dependents reported on returns filed by
the person from whom child support obligations are sought, and returns filed with respect to such person
or the person to whom the obligation is owed.
Under current law (IRC §6103(l)(10)), employees of federal, state, and local child support agencies also
have access to the amount of offset under IRC Section 6402(c). Some of these data (i.e., SSNs, addresses,
offset amount) may also be disclosed to contractors of federal, state, and local child support agencies for
the purposes of child support enforcement.
In addition, under current law, certain tax data disclosed from the IRS to the Social Security
Administration for administering social security programs may be re-disclosed to federal, state, and local
child support enforcement agencies for child support enforcement purposes under IRC Section 6103(l)(8).
This includes data on SSNs, net-earnings from self-employment, wages, and certain amounts of
retirement income.
Failure to follow the law regarding the disclosure of taxpayer information may subject employees and
contractors of state and local child support agencies to penalties. (Security guidelines for federal, state,
and local agencies using these data can be found in IRS Publication 1075.)
Summary of S. 534
Tribal child support programs were not explicitly included in the law that al owed state and local CSE
programs to have access to this information. Instead, these tribal programs must contract with a state IV-D
entity to have limited data re-disclosed to them. This difference in access has raised longstanding parity
concerns amongst stakeholders. In addition, the child support community also has expressed concern that
the categories of taxpayer data that IV-D agency contractors may access specified in IRC Section
6103(l)(6) are overly limited and may hamper program effectiveness. At the same time, expanding data
access may cause others to raise concerns about the security of taxpayer information.
S. 534 would amend SSA Section 464 to explicitly provide that the FOP authorities apply to tribal IV-D
programs. (A related technical amendment to SSA Section 453(g) would al ow federal reimbursement to
tribal programs for the costs of the information exchange.) It also would amend IRC Sections 6103 and
6402(c) to al ow tribal IV-D programs access to taxpayer data governed by those sections on par with the
access given to federal, state, and local child support agencies. And it would remove from IRC Section
6103(l)(6)(B) the enumerated categories of taxpayer data that may be disclosed to IV-D agency
contractors. This would effectively al ow contractors of al IV-D agencies to have the same access to data
as employees of these agencies.

---

Congressional Research Service
3
If S. 534 were to be enacted, tribal programs would need to demonstrate their ability to comply with
applicable federal safeguards on taxpayer data, described in IRC Section 6103(p)(4), in order to have
direct access to the CSE locate, establishment, and enforcement tools that utilize that data. Failure to
follow the law regarding the disclosure of taxpayer information may subject employees and contractors of
tribal child support agencies to the same penalties as employees and contractors of state and local child
support agencies.


Author Information

Jessica Tollestrup
Margot L. Crandall-Hollick
Specialist in Social Policy
Specialist in Public Finance





Disclaimer
This document was prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). CRS serves as nonpartisan shared staff
to congressional committees and Members of Congress. It operates solely at the behest of and under the direction of
Congress. Information in a CRS Report should not be relied upon for purposes other than public understanding of
information that has been provided by CRS to Members of Congress in connection with CRS’s institutional role.
CRS Reports, as a work of the United States Government, are not subject to copyright protection in the United
States. Any CRS Report may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety without permission from CRS. However,
as a CRS Report may include copyrighted images or material from a third party, you may need to obtain the
permission of the copyright holder if you wish to copy or otherwise use copyrighted material.

IN11748 · VERSION 1 · NEW

---