NY1 For You: Brooklyn Mother Waits Months For State Child Support
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Being a single mother is not easy, but one Brooklyn woman says it is particularly hard when the state agency responsible for distributing child support payments holds onto funds for a half-year before paying. NY1's Susan Jhun filed the following report.For Daniele Gates and her eight-year-old son Thomas, money is not tight, but that does not mean raising a child alone on a public teacher's salary is not a struggle.
"Afterschool expenses alone are $4,000 a year. I want to do camp, that's $2,000 a summer," says Gates.
Gates receives $63 a week in court-ordered payments from Thomas's father, Shane Albritton, through the New York State Child Support Enforcement program. Additionally, Gates receives a weekly payment of $48 from Albritton because he fell behind in payments and owes over $4,000 in arrears.
To pay down those arrears, Child Support Enforcement offset Albritton's 2008 tax refund.
Yet Gates says she will not see any of the money from the tax refund for several months.
"They're doing everything they can to take the money maybe, but it's not coming to me," says Gates. "They have to make sure that the person he filed jointly with doesn't file a form to have her portion of the tax return returned. Now they've both written a letter and signed it, and said they're waiving all responsibility to any part of the tax return, but they're not taking that."
Albritton, who lives in Hawaii and could not be interviewed on camera for this story, said in an e-mail to NY1 that his current wife did not even earn any income last year.
But a spokesperson for the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, which administers child support, told NY1 they had no way of verifying that information unless Albritton's wife files a form with the IRS and the IRS then confirms that she has no claim to the refund money.
Otherwise, Gates and her son will have to wait five months before the funds become available on this debit card supplied to her by New York State.
"It would pay for camp. It would pay for afterschool. It would pay for, you know, I'm a teacher so I'm not working the summer, so summers are expensive when you have a child," says Gates.
In order to help Gates access these funds before the summer's out, NY1 put her and Albritton in touch with the IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service.
If you have a similar problem and you need help from the IRS, you can find the Taxpayer Advocate nearest you at www.irs.gov/advocate or call 1-877-777-4778.