Representative Kate Harper (R-61) Looks out for Mom's, Kids

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

May 7, 2008

Harper Says New Child Support Fee is a Tax on Children, Single Working Parents

HARRISBURG – Just weeks after nearly every member of the state House voted to have the state pay a new $25 fee for parents collecting child support, 117 lawmakers changed their minds and today voted to instead assess the fee against the parents.

“When this law takes effect, parents collecting as little as $167 in child support per month will have to give $25 back to the government each year for the privilege of collecting the money owed to them from the other parent,” Harper said. “Taxing children and single moms is, I believe, absolutely the wrong thing to do. Every dollar of child support money should go toward food, clothes and shelter for the child, not government bureaucracy. We can afford it. They can’t.”

The federal government gives Pennsylvania $175 million per year for child support enforcement, but the Federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 requires states to repay the federal government $25 per family not on public assistance and collecting at least $500 annually in child support through the state Department of Public Welfare. States can pay the $25 themselves, or they have the option of assessing it on the parent paying child support or on the parent receiving child support.

The Rendell Administration advocated for legislation that assesses the fee against the parents collecting child support. His administration actively opposed Harper’s ongoing efforts to have the state pay the fee instead, and nearly all Democratic members of the House voted to enact the tax.

“We recently learned the Commonwealth has a revenue surplus of more than $435 million,” Harper said. “How many families in Pennsylvania – especially single-parent families – have a surplus? In a state budget of more than $28 billion, we can surely find the $2 million needed to pay this fee and allow these struggling families to keep their $25.”

Harper, a lawyer who has practiced family law for more than 20 years in Montgomery County, successfully amended House Bill 2252 on March 31 to require the state to absorb the $25 cost on behalf of all families. Her attempts to pass the same amendment to Senate Bill 1278 on Wednesday failed by a vote of 77-119, after hours of debate.

Under the bill, as currently drafted, the state will cover the $25 fee only for parents collecting less than $2,000 annually in child support. However, parents who receive $2,000 or more annually in child support for their children — as little as $167 a month — would be responsible for paying the fee themselves.