'Help The Court Has Seized My Assets' - Garnishment In Law And
Practice
A court order that seizes assets from the defendant to pay off a
debt is known as Garnishment. One form of garnishment is
automatic withholding of the debtor's wages. When a creditor
fails to satisfy the debt taken, the court can issue a
garnishment against him. When the creditor petitions the court
to send a portion of its pay to satisfy the debt then this step
is taken.
The garnishment law differs from state to state and varies in
details also. Generally, the TVA is required to take over 25% of
an employee's disposable earnings or assets, thereafter sending
that amount to court. The pay of an employee can be under
garnishment until the complete of the debt has been collected.
This situation arises when we fail to pay taxes, skip out on
child support or overlook some bills. Under these circumstances
the state government or the creditor can seize our wages as
well. This process is known as Wage garnishment. Most
garnishment requires court orders and employers are supposed to
notify the creditor before any step is taken. But garnishment is
the last option for which a government goes for. It is taken up
only after all other options have exhausted.
One should never ignore IRS because due to ignorance there are
chances of increase in garnishment, as they know our work place,
living place and even the bank account. The loans or the help
provided by the government are of many types such as student
loan for education, business loan, child support, and etc. To
collect the loans back, IRS is not alone but the state
government, private creditors, or even an ex-spouse demanding
the alimony can also demand garnishment of our pay. To claim the
garnishment, only different branches of the government do not
need to take court orders, other than every other agency needs
to obtain a court order to claim the garnishment.
Losing the income is not easy but there are some limits for
garnishment. Title III of the Consumer Credit Protection Act
caps the amount of wages that can be taken from an employee. In
this manner, the person is also left with some part of the
income as well as the creditor is also paid up. This also
prevents the creditor to speed up the debt recovery procedure
and harass the debtor.
The level of garnishment is based on the disposable earnings of
the employee. This amount comes after deducting the legal
deductions of federal state and local taxes, social security,
unemployment, insurance and state employee retirement system.
Things that do not come in the head of voluntary deductions are
union dues, health and life insurance, charity, purchase of
savings bonds and payment for payroll advance. After taking all
the preventative measures, the disposable income amount is
calculated the maximum amount that can be garnished in any pay
period should not exceed more than 25% of the employees'
disposable earning.
The garnishment law allows up to 50% of the employees'
disposable income to be garnished, if he supports the wife and a
child. The restrictions on garnishment do not apply in case of
court orders of bankruptcy and outstanding debts of federal or
state taxes. When the federal law differs from the state wage
garnishment law, the smaller garnishment amount must be
followed.
Care should be taken to stay from the evil of garnishment. In
some cases this situation occurs when a letter is received form
the IRS department 20 days before the garnishment date. That
time if the person goes to the IRS and explains the problem and
repayment schedule or apologize and seeks more time for
repayment then the problem at hand can be solved. If the
creditor also has a problem he also needs to go to the court and
seek an order for garnishment. Thus if the reason explained by
the debtor is genuine then the department chalks out a repayment
plan. But if the second chance of the repayment is also
defaulted then further garnishment proceedings and called for.