In responding to registrations or petitions for enforcement of two or more child support orders in effect at the same time with regard to the same obligor and different individual obligees, at least one of which was issued by a tribunal of another state or a foreign country, a tribunal of this state shall enforce those orders in the same manner as if the orders had been issued by a tribunal of this state.
Source: L. 93: Entire article R&RE, p. 1587, § 1, effective January 1, 1995. L. 2003: Entire section amended, p. 1248, § 8, effective July 1, 2004. L. 2015: Entire section amended, (HB 15-1198), ch. 173, p. 549, § 10, effective July 1.
COMMENT
This section is concerned with those multiple orders that involve two or more families of the same obligor. Although all such orders are entitled to enforcement, practical difficulties frequently exist. For example, full enforcement of each of the multiple orders may exceed the maximum allowed for income withholding. The federal statute, 42 U.S.C. § 666(b)(1), requires that to be eligible for the federal funding for enforcement, states must provide a ceiling for child-support withholding expressed in a percentage that may not exceed the federal law limitations on wage garnishment, Consumer Credit Protection Act of 1968, 15 U.S.C. § 1673(b). In order to allocate resources between competing families, UIFSA refers to state law. The basic principle is that one or more support orders for an out-of-state family of the obligor, and one or more orders for an in-state family, are of equal dignity. In allocating payments to different obligees, every child-support order should be treated as if it had been issued by a tribunal of the forum state, that is, preferential treatment for a local family over an out-of-state family is prohibited by local law. The addition of a foreign support order to the formula supplied by this section should assure that all children will have equal ability to obtain their share of child support.