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Collection Actions: 15 U.S.C. § 1672. Definitions

For the purposes of this subchapter:

(a) The term “earnings” means compensation paid or payable for personal services, whether denominated as wages, salary, commission, bonus, or otherwise, and includes periodic payments pursuant to a pension or retirement program.

(b) The term “disposable earnings” means that part of the earnings of any individual remaining after the deduction from those earnings of any amounts required by law to be withheld.

Collection Actions: 5 U.S.C. § 5514. Installment deduction for indebtedness to the United States

(a)(1) When the head of an agency or his designee determines that an employee, member of the Armed Forces or Reserve of the Armed Forces, is indebted to the United States for debts to which the United States is entitled to be repaid at the time of the determination by the head of an agency or his designee, or is notified of such a debt by the head of another agency or his designee the amount of indebtedness may be collected in monthly installments, or at officially established pay intervals, by deduction from the current pay account of the individual.

Collection Actions: Listing of Provisions

TITLE 5—GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION AND EMPLOYEES

PART III—EMPLOYEES

SUBPART D—PAY AND ALLOWANCES

CHAPTER 55—PAY ADMINISTRATION

Subchapter II—Withholding Pay

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Truth in Lending: 43(e)(2) Qualified mortgage defined—general.

1.858 General QM Amendments Effective on March 1, 2021. Comment 43-2 provides that, for a transaction for which a creditor received an application on or after March 1, 2021 but prior to October 1, 2022, a person has the option of complying either: With 12 CFR part 1026 as it is in effect; or with 12 CFR part 1026 as it was in effect on February 26, 2021, together with any amendments to 12 CFR part 1026 that become effective after February 26, 2021, other than the revisions to Regulation Z contained in Qualified M

Truth in Lending: 3(b) Credit Over Applicable Threshold Amount.

1.31 Threshold amount. For purposes of § 1026.3(b), the threshold amount in effect during a particular period is the amount stated in comment 3(b)-3 below for that period. The threshold amount is adjusted effective January 1 of each year by any annual percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) that was in effect on the preceding June 1.

Fair Credit Reporting: 16.8.3 Authorized User Issues

Credit card issuers often report information about an account on the credit reports of authorized users, that is, consumers who are authorized to use an account but generally are not liable (depending on state law).370 Regulation B, which implements the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, requires creditors to furnish credit report information for a spouse who is an authorized user or joint accountholder, and permits such furnishing for non-spousal authorized users.371

Fair Credit Reporting: 9.2.1.2a Identity Theft Report

Regulation V defines the term “identity theft report.”31 This definition imposes some significant burdens on consumers. Thus, any consumer seeking to invoke the extended fraud alert32 or the blocking provisions of the FCRA,33 should check to make sure that any police report meets the regulation’s requirements.

To qualify as an “identity theft report” under the FCRA, the report must meet the following criteria:

Fair Credit Reporting: 15.1.1 What Is an Investigative Consumer Report?

A typical consumer report lists specific objective information concerning a consumer’s credit history, criminal record, employment, address, or related subjects. The information is obtained from creditor, public, or other written records. However, sometimes a user, usually an insurance company or prospective employer, requests an investigative consumer report.

Fair Credit Reporting: 15.2.2 Report Must Concern Character, General Reputation, Personal Characteristics, or Mode of Living

The first element deals with the report’s subject matter, which must concern character, general reputation, personal characteristics, or mode of living.16 In contrast, an ordinary consumer report can arise from information regarding any of these four qualities, or regarding a consumer’s creditworthiness, credit standing, or credit capacity.17 This distinction suggests that the special provisions for investigative consumer reports are not thought necessary when only credit-related informa

Fair Credit Reporting: 15.2.4.1 Generally

The Act specifically excludes from the definition of investigative consumer report a report that consists solely of specific factual information on a consumer’s credit record obtained directly from a creditor or a CRA (where the CRA obtained the information from a creditor or the consumer).29 A report with both non-investigative and investigative information is still an investigative consumer report, since the statutory definition of an investigative consumer report is a consumer report “or portion thereof” that contains investig

Fair Credit Reporting: 15.2.4.2.1 Introduction

The FCRA was amended in 2003 by FACTA to meet a rising demand by employers to exempt certain reports about employees from the requirements for investigative consumer reports. Employers had complained that the FCRA unfairly undercut meaningful investigations of employee misconduct by requiring the employer to provide FCRA notices ahead of time, notices that effectively alerted the employee to the employer’s suspicions.35

Fair Credit Reporting: 15.2.4.2.2 Applicability to employee background checks

The second qualifying reason for the exclusion, compliance with federal, state, or local laws, is potentially quite broad. For example, an employer’s investigation of an employee’s discrimination complaints was ruled to be in connection with “compliance with Federal, State, or local laws” and thus exempt from the definition of a consumer report.45 The applicability of the exclusion does not depend on the particular motive or purpose of the participants.46

Fair Credit Reporting: 15.2.4.2.4 Limits to the exclusion

To limit the exclusion’s scope, the FCRA further requires that the communication must not be for the purpose of investigating a consumer’s creditworthiness, credit standing, or credit capacity (in other words, the communication must only bear on the employee’s character, general reputation, personal characteristics, or mode of living). These limitations appear designed so that consumer credit reports from the three major nationwide CRAs will not fall within the exclusion.

Fair Credit Reporting: 15.2.4.2.5 Notice requirements when the exclusion applies

The FCRA does maintain some regulation over employee misconduct investigation reports, notwithstanding that they are not “consumer reports.” An employer who takes any adverse action based in whole or in part on the exempted communication must disclose to the consumer a summary of the communication, although the employer need not disclose any sources of information for use in preparing what would be, except for the exception, an investigative consumer report.63 However, if a report is not a consumer report at all, the exclusion is not impl