12.4 Closure Retention

Overview

Federal regulations provide the instances in which a IV-D child support case may be closed along with the appropriate steps to take for each closure reason. While some of the cases shall be closed forever (e.g. the non-custodial parent is deceased or there is no longer a current child support order and the child support arrears are unenforceable or less than $500.00), others may be re-opened (e.g. the custodial parent cooperates after not cooperating or the custodial parent requests the case be re-opened) as long as a new application is completed according to 6.2 Intake – Application. Therefore, it is important to retain physical child support files for a certain amount of time to allow for the possibility of the case re-opening.

Policy

When a case worker closes a IV-D child support case, the District CSE Office shall keep the physical IV-D child support file for at least three (3) years following closure. After the retention period, the physical files shall be destroyed in compliance with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requirements for federal tax information (FTI) as discussed in Chapter 3 Confidentiality and Safeguarding Information.

Cross Reference

None