Lawmakers passed the Child Maintenance and Access Act at a House of Assembly sitting on Thursday night, allowing the Magistrates’ Court to withdraw child support funding directly from a negligent parent’s paycheque.

 

The legislation also helps ensure child access for parents who have assumed the appropriate responsibilities regarding support, according to Health and Social Development Minister Ronnie Skelton (R-at large), who brought the bill to the House.

“[The bill] provides for each parent, and a person who has assumed responsibility for a child, to be entitled to have access to that child, and allows the court to address the issue of access at the same time as an application for a maintenance order is being heard,” he said.

Previously, the court’s only option for dealing with parents who were delinquent on maintenance order payments was incarceration, a response that some mothers have said does nothing to improve the financial situation for their children.

“If the fathers get arrested, us mothers still aren’t getting help,” a single mother told the Beacon in 2015.

This new legislation is designed to change that, allowing the court to take other measures to encourage child support payments.

Those measures include seizure of a negligent parent’s goods; direct deductions from paycheques and pensions; and suspensions of any government-issued licences and permits.

Tax law dismissed

Lawmakers also dismissed the International Tax Authority Act this week, according to HOA Communication Officer Linton Leonard.

The law would have established the ITA — which is currently under the umbrella of the Ministry of Finance — as a separate statutory body.

The ITA is responsible for providing information to other countries that have Tax Information Exchange Agreements with the Virgin Islands.

The bill would have also provided greater protection for financial-institution employees responsible for providing information to the ITA, according to Premier Dr. Orlando Smith (R-at large).

No explanation was provided for the legislation’s dismissal, and attempts to reach the premier were not immediately successful.

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