Blog: Garnishments

When an employee files for bankruptcy, most garnishments must stop — and the obligation to stop is immediate, court-backed, and carries penalties for violation. Payroll is frequently the last function to find out, which is exactly the problem: the automatic stay takes effect on filing, not on notification, and continuing to withhold after it attaches can be a violation even where the employer was genuinely unaware.

This guide covers what stops, what does not, what ...

... More

Garnishments:
How to Handle Multiple Garnishments on a Single Employee6/4/2026

When two or more garnishments arrive for the same employee, the instinct is to be fair — split the available amount, or honor them in the order they arrived. Both approaches are wrong, and both create employer liability.

Multiple garnishments follow a statutory priority. Higher-priority orders are paid in full up to their own limit; lower-priority orders receive whatever remains within the aggregate cap, which is frequently nothing. This guide covers the sequence, ...

... More

Garnishments:
Creditor Garnishments: State Exemption Amounts and Processing Rules6/1/2026

Creditor garnishment is the category where state law does the most work. Support orders and federal tax levies operate under largely uniform federal frameworks. Ordinary creditor garnishment, by contrast, is governed by a federal floor of protection layered under fifty different state regimes — with different caps, different exemptions, different answer deadlines, different forms, and in a few states an outright prohibition.

An employer that processes creditor ...

... More

Garnishments:
Student Loan Garnishments: Federal vs. Private Loan Rules5/31/2026

Student loan garnishments come in two forms that differ in almost every respect, and the difference determines how you process them. Federal student loan garnishment is an administrative action requiring no court judgment, capped at 15% of disposable earnings, with its own notice regime. Private student loan garnishment is an ordinary creditor garnishment that requires a lawsuit and judgment, and is subject to the standard 25% creditor cap and all applicable state ...

... More

Garnishments:
IRS Tax Levies on Wages: Processing Steps and Employee Protections5/30/2026

An IRS wage levy is not a garnishment with a different name. It works on inverted logic, and an employer that processes it like a creditor garnishment will get it badly wrong.

A creditor garnishment says: withhold a percentage, protect the rest. An IRS levy says: protect a small calculated amount, and send everything else. That inversion is why employees are so frequently shocked by their first levied paycheck, and why payroll needs to understand the mechanic before ...

... More

Garnishments:
“Child Support Withholding: How to Process Income Withholding Orders“5/29/2026

Child support withholding is the highest-volume and highest-risk garnishment type an employer handles. High volume because support orders are common; high risk because the deadlines are measured in days, the liability for failing to withhold is close to absolute, and the order arrives on a standardized federal form that many payroll staff have never been trained to read.

This guide walks the process end to end, in the order you actually perform it.

The Order: Form

...

... More

Garnishments:
The Employer's Complete Guide to Wage Garnishments5/28/2026

Wage garnishment is the area of payroll where an employer can be made to pay an employee's debt out of company funds. That single fact should shape how the function is staffed and controlled, because it makes garnishment processing meaningfully different from every other payroll task: the penalty for getting it wrong is not a fine calculated on the error, it is potentially the entire amount that should have been withheld.

This guide covers the mechanics that apply ...

... More

First Page | Previous | Next | Last Page