Collection assistance fees

Collection assistance fees. (a) State Setoff Collection. - To recover the costs incurred by the Department in collecting setoff debts under this Chapter, a collection assistance fee of five dollars ($5.00) is imposed on each debt collected through setoff. The Department must collect this fee as part of the debt and retain it. The collection assistance fee under this subsection shall not be added to child support debts or collected as part of child support debts. Instead, the Department shall retain from collections under Article 4 of Chapter 105 of the General Statutes the cost of collecting child support debts through debt setoff under this Chapter. (a1) State Forced Collection. - To recover the costs incurred by the Department in force collecting debts under this Chapter, a collection assistance fee equal to three percent (3%) of the amount of the debt is imposed on each debt collected through forced collection. The Department must collect this fee as part of the debt and retain it. The collection assistance fee under this subsection shall not be added to child support debts or collected as part of child support debts. Instead, the Department shall retain from collections under Article 4 of Chapter 105 of the General Statutes the cost of collecting child support debts through forced collection under this Chapter. (b) Repealed by Session Laws 2001-380, s. 3, effective November 1, 2001. (c) Local Debts. - To recover the costs incurred by local agencies in submitting debts for setoff collection under this Chapter, a local collection assistance fee of fifteen dollars ($15.00) is imposed on each local agency debt submitted under G.S. 105A-3(b1) and collected through setoff. The Department must collect this fee as part of the debt and remit it to the clearinghouse that submitted the debt. The local collection assistance fee does not apply to child support debts. (d) Priority. - If the Department is able to collect only part of a debt through setoff, the collection assistance fee provided in subsection (a) of this section has priority over the local collection assistance fee and over the remainder of the debt. The local collection assistance fee has priority over the remainder of the debt. (1979, c. 801, s. 94; 1989 (Reg. Sess., 1990), c. 946, s. 3; 1995, c. 360, s. 4(a); 1997-490, s. 1; 2000-126, s. 6; 2001-380, s. 3; 2002-156, s. 5(c); 2004-21, s. 1; 2025-83, s. 11(a).)