A wage garnishment is issued when there has been a court ordered collection for money that is owed. The money is deducted by the employer from the wages of the employee and sent through the court system to satisfy the debt. Garnishments are often related to back taxes, child support, unpaid fines and credit card debt.
There are federal laws about how much can be garnished from paychecks. State laws can not take more than federal law allows, but they can choose to take less. In the state of Nevada the amount that can be garnished is either up to 25 percent of a person’s disposable weekly income or the amount by which the disposable earnings for that week exceed 50 times the federal minimum hourly wage in effect at the time the earnings are payable, which ever is less.
The employer notifies the employee by mail of the garnishment. The duty of the employee is clear. They must follow the garnishment or they become responsible for the debt. Talking with the employer gives no relief from the garnishment.
Nevada does have a statute of limitations on judgements and consumer debt. Nevada laws state that the debt expires if no payment has been made in four years. Judgements must be made before that time or no garnishments can be taken.
Once a garnishment has been put in place legally the only way to remove it is to declare bankruptcy. With that being said there are different types of bankruptcies and they may not clear all the debt. Debt that is owed to the government is handled differently than other types of debt. There is some truth that there are only some things that you have to do in life and pay taxes is one of them.
The two basic types of personal bankruptcy are Chapter 7 Bankruptcy and Chapter 13 Bankruptcy. Chapter 13 Bankruptcy protects assets and has a payment plan to take care a portion of the debt. Chapter 7 Bankruptcy has no payment plan, but the court can for the liquidation of property to pay debt back. A lawyer who specializes in bankruptcy is probably the most qualified to help make the decision as to what type of bankruptcy would benefit each individual.
The bottom line is once a garnishment is in place, it will continue until the full judgement is paid unless you do something legally to have the debt released. If you can manage with the garnishment in place and still live it may be an option for you. Each case should be examined individually.