Treasury is inviting comments on the paperwork behind notices sent to some account holders when a garnishment order affects an account receiving directly deposited federal benefits. The notice is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on October 26, and seeks an extension of a currently approved information collection.
When the notice is sent
Treasury describes notices under 31 CFR 212.6 where an account receives directly deposited federal benefit payments, a protected amount has been established and funds exceeding that amount are subject to garnishment.
The account-holder notice explains the order, protected amount, any applicable fee and the account holder's rights. The supporting statement also estimates the burden of maintaining garnishment records and attaching a separate notice to certain child-support orders.
This is a paperwork review. It does not announce new authority to take benefits, remove an existing protection or report that a particular account was improperly garnished.
The estimates and questions
The notice lists 487,750 respondents and annual responses, with an estimated total annual burden of 76,688 hours. It gives estimated times per response of 10 minutes per account-holder notice and five minutes per child-support notice.
Those figures describe Treasury's estimated information-collection burden. They are not a count of people whose protected income was taken, and the document does not measure how well recipients understand the notices.
Treasury invites comments on practical utility, the accuracy of its burden estimate, improvements to quality and clarity, and ways to reduce respondents' burden, including through technology.
A deadline still awaiting publication
The inspection PDF says comments must be received on or before [INSERT DATE 60 DAYS AFTER DATE OF PUBLICATION IN THE FEDERAL REGISTER]. By this desk's count, if publication occurs October 26 as scheduled, the comment deadline would be December 28: the 60-day date falls on December 25, and the count rolls to the next federal business day. This is a conditional calculation, not a date printed in the inspection copy.
Comments may be emailed to PRA@treasury.gov. Treasury says comments will be summarized for the Office of Management and Budget request and will become public records.