C15/2006 Overpayment Management Manual Update to 7.11 Payment Notices

Purpose

The purpose of this Instruction is to advise that the provision of a service by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to process garnishees for the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) has been formalised under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

Background

Under section 205A(1)(b) of the Veterans' Entitlements Act, 1986, the Commission may request payment from any person who holds money for, or on account of, a debtor.  The request is effected by the issue of a payment or garnishee notice.

Prior to the establishment of this MOU, ATO has actioned DVA garnishee notices on an ad-hoc basis.  Given the relatively small numbers of DVA garnishees, automated processing is not considered practical at this stage, but is open to review at a later date.  A manual process of actioning DVA garnishees will continue under the exchange protocols specified in the MOU.

Policy

The MOU is applicable for the financial years 2005 – 2008.

Only DVA clients with a total outstanding debt amount equal to, or greater than $100.00 will be selected.  DVA will limit the selection to a maximum of 200 referrals nationally for the period covered by this MOU.

Update to the OMM

The policy and procedural guidelines for payment notice recovery are contained at section 7.11 of the Overpayment Management Manual (OMM).

Please refer to the CLIK Reference Library, Overpayment Management Manual, Chapter 7 Recovery and Other Methods of Finalising Debts where section 7.11 has been updated to reflect the MOU with the ATO.

It should be noted that this does not alter the policy whereby payment notice action should only be considered where the debtor is not in receipt of a DVA payment, or will not negotiate a reasonable settlement of the debt.

Update to ROOLS

DVA will liaise with the ATO to develop the necessary templates for exchange of information.  These templates will then be added to the IS ROOLS Debt Management Standard Letters.

Contact

For any questions regarding this instruction, contact Elaine Tse on ext 16011 from the Income Support and Aged Care Policy section in National Office.