Wagegarnishment policy
Wagegarnishment policy
Wage garnishment refers to an order from the court issued to an employer. This court order, orders the employer to withhold an employees paycheck partly to satisfy a debt his employee owes to a third party. The judge issues an order only when the employee’s creditor decides to sue the employee and acquires a court judgment stating that the employee truly owes money to the creditor. In cases of child support, taxes, alimony, student loan, the creditor need not obtain any judgment prior to garnishing the wages of an employee. A wage garnishment is a legal procedure where a person’s earnings are being withheld for the debt repayment by an employer. Generally, garnishments are made as per the court order. The other legal procedures comprise state tax agency levies or IRS for federal administrative garnishments and unpaid taxes for non-tax debts. Wage garnishments exclude voluntary wage assignments such that they create situations where the employees are ready to voluntarily agree if their employers turn some specific amount of their personal earnings to a creditor or few creditors. The Consumer Credit Protection Act protects the services of an employee as he cannot be fired if his pay is garnished for a specific debt. However, any issues besides the garnished amount should be submitted to the court initiating the action for withholding. Wage garnishment policy complies with the court orders, the CCPA and other applicable laws. The policy is that the court notifies the employee immediately regarding the withholding of the employee’s wages and gives enough information to the employee regarding the protest methods that can be applied against the court garnishment. The CCPA restricts the amount to be garnished to 25% of the disposable income or this is calculated taking into account the employee’s disposable income is over 30 times the minimum wages. The amount is taken into effect whichever is less. As per the wage garnishment policy, the court orders for cases where there is child support or alimony, the CCPA permits up to 50% of the disposable income of the employee to be garnished. In cased the employee is not supporting a child or a spouse his garnish payment is up to 60%. Apart from this, the court adds surplus 5% to the garnished amount, if the payments are over 12 weeks in arrears. The garnishment limitations are not applicable to bankruptcy court orders, voluntary wage assignments and federal debts or state taxes. The CCPA does not protect employees subjected to garnishments from more creditors or more judgments from the same creditor.