CFR

105-60.305-12—Administrative actions to improve assessment and collection of fees.

(a) Charging interest. GSA may charge requesters who fail to pay fees interest on the amount billed starting on the 31st day following the day on which the billing was sent. Interest will be at the rate prescribed in 31 U.S.C. 3717.

(b) Effect of the Debt Collection Act of 1982. GSA will take any action authorized by the Debt Collection Act of 1982 (Pub. L. 97-365, 96 Stat. 1749), including disclosure to consumer reporting agencies, use of collection agencies, and assessment of penalties and administrative costs, where appropriate, to encourage payment.

(c) Aggregating requests. When GSA reasonably believes that a requester, or group of requesters acting in concert, is attempting to break down a request into a series of requests related to the same subject for the purpose of evading the assessment of fees, GSA will combine any such requests and charge accordingly, including fees for previous requests where charges were not assessed. GSA will presume that multiple requests of this type within a 30-day period are made to avoid fees.

(d) Advanced payments. Whenever a requester is delinquent in paying the fee for a previous request (i.e., within 30 days of the date of the billing), GSA will require the requester to pay the full amount owed plus any applicable interest penalties and administrative costs as provided in paragraph (a) of this section or to demonstrate that he or she has, in fact, paid the fee. In such cases, GSA will also require advance payment of the full amount of the estimated fee before the agency begins to process a new request or a pending request from that requester. When advance payment is required under this selection, the administrative time limits in subsection (a)(6) of the FOIA (i.e., 10 working days from receipt of appeals from initial denial plus permissible time extensions) will begin only after GSA has received the fee payments described in § 105-60.305-8.

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