(a) Fees for records filed with OGE—

(1) Services for which fees will not be charged:

(i) The search and review time expended by OGE to produce a record;

(ii) The first copy of the records provided; or

(iii) The Office of Government Ethics making the records available to be personally reviewed by the data subject.

(2) Additional copies of records. When additional copies of records are requested, an individual may be charged $.15 per page.

(i) Notice of anticipated fees in excess of $25.00. If the charge for these additional copies amounts to more than $25.00, the requester will be notified and payment of fees may be required before the additional copies are provided, unless the requester has indicated in advance his willingness to pay fees as high as those anticipated.

(ii) Advance payments. An advance payment before additional copies of the records are made will be required if:

(A) The Office estimates or determines that the total fee to be assessed under this section is likely to exceed $250.00. When a determination is made that the allowable charges are likely to exceed $250.00, the requester will be notified of the likely cost and will be required to provide satisfactory assurance of full payment where the requester has a history of prompt payment of Privacy Act fees, or will be required to submit an advance payment of an amount up to the full estimated charges in the case of requesters with no history of payment; or

(B) The requester has previously failed to pay a Privacy Act fee charged in a timely fashion (i.e., within 30 days of the date of the billing). In such cases, the requester may be required to pay the full amount owed plus any applicable interest as provided by paragraph (a)(2)(iii) of this section, and to make an advance payment of the full amount of the estimated fee before the Office begins to process a new request.

(iii) Interest charges. Interest charges on an unpaid bill may be assessed starting on the 31st day following the day on which the billing was sent. Interest shall be at the rate prescribed in 31 U.S.C. 3717 and shall accrue from the date of billing. To collect unpaid bills, the Office will follow the provisions of the Debt Collection Act of 1982, as amended (96 Stat. 1749 et seq.) and the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 (110 Stat. 1321-358 et seq.), including the use of consumer reporting agencies, collection agencies, and offset.

(iv) Remittance. Remittance should be made by either a personal check, bank draft or a money order that is payable to the Department of the Treasury of the United States.

(b) Fees for records filed with agencies other than OGE. An agency shall apply its own Privacy Act fee schedule for records in OGE's executive branch Governmentwide systems that are filed directly with the agency. An agency that does not have a Privacy Act fee schedule may apply the fee schedule in this section.