The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910
There are credit garnishments, child support garnishments, student loan garnishments, and tax garnishments for both state and federal taxes. There may be a few more that I have yet to see.
Each has different rules regarding how much of a paycheck can be garnished with the states weighing in with their own rules. A credit garnishment, in which an employee defaulted on an obligation (car loan, store credit card, etc.), is not even allowed in all states and the amount that can be garnished greatly varies.
A child support garnishment can be as much as 65% of net disposable pay depending on whether the garnishment is past due and depending from which state the garnishment is issued. Net disposable pay is generally calculated by taking gross pay and substracting the required tax amounts (FICA, Medicare, federal withholding, state witholding and local taxes) resulting in net disposable pay.
When an employee has two or more orders, then the process can become complicated depending on priority (child support for example trumps a credit garnishment regardless of which garnishment was received first).
When you receive a garnishment, take your time to go through it. Call the agency that issued the garnishment if you have questions. Don’t take any actions against the employee because of the garnishment. (Some states will allow you to charge the employee a monthly fee because of the additional paper work required).
Regards,
Bryan Dear
