MEMO
TO: Joint Procedure Committee
FROM: Andy Forward
DATE: March 30, 2010
RE: Rule 55, N.D. Sup. Ct. Admin. R., Income Tax Return Setoff for Unpaid Court-ordered Fines, Fees, and Costs
Staff has prepared amendments to Rule 55 based on the time computation amendments made to the federal rules. The principal simplifying innovation is to count all days, including intermediate weekends and holidays, in computing time periods under the procedural rules. Under the previous rules, intermediate weekends and holidays were omitted when computing short periods but included when computing longer periods. Under the amended rules, intermediate weekends and holidays are counted regardless of the length of the specified period.
To further simplify time-counting, the federal advisory committees proposed changing most periods of less than 30 days to multiples of 7 days. The advisory committees adopted 7, 14, 21, and 28-day periods when possible, so that deadlines will usually fall on weekdays.
In Section 3A., line 17, the time period for the state court administrator to notify a person about an unpaid obligation was increased from 10 to 14 days after being notified by the tax commissioner.
In Section 4, line 47, the time period to notify a person of the state court administrator’s decision was increased from five to seven days.
In Section 5, line 50, the time period to appeal the state court administrator’s decision was increased from 10 to 14 days.
Some form and style amendments are also proposed.
The proposed amendments to Rule 55 are attached.