Tax Agency to Help Collect Child Support : Law: District attorney will enlist state board to seize the assets of delinquent parents more easily.

Carrie Walls says she barely has the money to buy her fast-growing 6-year-old daughter a pair of shoes or get a haircut for her 4-year-old son.

Meanwhile, the 37-year-old Mission Viejo woman says her former husband owes the family $20,000 in back child support, money she has little hope of recovering.

“Every penny I make goes to support the bare necessities of my children,” Walls said. “I have had to borrow money for Christmas for the last three years from friends.”

A program unveiled Monday by state Controller Kathleen Connell and Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi, though, could force deadbeat parents to pay their fair share of their children’s expenses.

Starting this month, the state Franchise Tax Board will help the district attorney’s office in Orange County and elsewhere make delinquent parents pay by using a range of tactics, including placing levies on bank accounts, paychecks and even state tax refunds.

“I’m here to warn parents in Orange County who are not paying to start paying immediately, because if you don’t, we are going to reach out and grab your bank account,” Connell said during a news conference called to announce the program. “You have a responsibility to support your children.”

After an 18-month, six-county tryout, which included Los Angeles County, the tax board has decided to expand its Child Support Collection Program statewide. During the tryout, the program collected more than $50 million in delinquent payments.

Orange County is the 15th county to join. Earlier this month, it sent its first 1,000 cases to the tax board and plans to send another 1,000 cases every month for the next 14 months.

In all, Orange County families are owed about $231 million in delinquent child support payments, Capizzi said, while deadbeat parents statewide owe more than $5 billion.

The growing problem of non-payment of child support has forced many families onto state welfare rolls. One of the goals of the program is to reduce those rolls and help children move out of the ranks of the impoverished, Capizzi said.

“Those millions of dollars belong to our children, and they need that money to get a fair start in life,” he said.

Kathy Raphael, associate coordinator of the local chapter of the Assn. for Children for Enforcement of Support, said delinquent parents don’t harm just their own families, but society in general.

“It’s a societal problem, because our tax dollars are going to pay for children on welfare who are there because one parent chooses not to be responsible,” she said.

“This is one tool that will tighten the net around people who don’t think they have to pay.”

Using a computerized base of statewide data, the tax board can investigate cases to locate a delinquent parent’s assets much more quickly and at a fraction of what the county pays to contact sources by telephone and mail.

Although the district attorney must go to court to garnish the wages of non-paying parents, the tax board has the authority to quickly issue a levy on bank accounts such as checking, savings, IRA and Keogh accounts, and on a deadbeat parent’s paychecks or tax refunds.

It also has the power to seize personal property such as vacant land, cash, safe deposit boxes, vehicles and boats.

“This program is going to help a lot of people,” Walls said. “It’s also going to get across the message that not supporting your children is not OK.”

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Expert Collectors The Orange County district attorney’s office is enlisting the expertise of the state Franchise Tax Board to help collect delinquent child support payments. About half the child support cases handled by the district attorney’s office are in arrears. The total number of cases: *

1990-91: 56,836 1994-95: 137,213 *

New Muscle Some of the ways the Franchise Tax Board will help the county collect child support payments: * Use computerized data to investigate cases and locate delinquent parent’s assets at a fraction of what county pays to contact sources by telephone and mail * Issue levy on bank assets such as checking, savings, IRA and Keogh accounts * Issue levies on paychecks through employer or on tax refunds * Seize real and personal property such as vacant land, cash, safe deposit boxes, vehicles and boats Source: Orange County district attorney’s office