Support collections go international

With jobs sometimes requiring one parent in a split family to live overseas, child support laws need to be updated to match this new global reality.

The Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, through standardization of processes, makes it easier for states to recover owed child support payments from a parent who has moved to another state. HF1198, sponsored by Rep. Pat Mazorol (R-Bloomington), would do the same for collection efforts internationally through the proposed federal Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance. The bill’s language would make the necessary amendments to the UIFSA to support the new treaty effort.

“If we have a child in Minnesota, it will make it easier to collect child support from someone in Germany,” said Mark Ponsolle, director of the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office Human Services Division.

As amended, the House Civil Law Committee approved the bill April 11 and moved it to the House Judiciary Policy and Finance Committee. It has no Senate companion.

Harriet Lansing, a Minnesota Court of Appeals judge who serves on the Uniform Laws Commission, said once the treaty is acted on by Congress, there will be a two-year deadline for states to sign on, or face a financial penalty. The legislation has been introduced in several states, with six or seven already enacting the changes. She said that the collection efforts would only be enforceable with countries that have signed the treaty.