It’s something no one hopes to have happen, but the reality is that a surprising number of parents in Minnesota fall behind on child support payments at some point.
While one missed payment won’t lead to something as serious as wage garnishment, those who fall farther behind may have reason to worry. To find out more about what wage garnishment is and how it works in a Minnesota family law case, keep reading.
What is wage garnishment?
Wage garnishment refers to practice of withholding a portion of a person’s pay so that the money can be handed directly over to creditors. In the family law context, wage garnishment happens when a person falls far behind on child support payments, leading to thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in arrearages. Garnishments are one way to get ahold of money quickly when other attempts at collecting have failed.
When is wage garnishment allowed?
In Minnesota, garnishment can happen for a variety of reasons, including in cases where a person is technically not behind on payments. Though this is referred to as income withholding, it works in the same way, with employers taking money out a person’s paycheck off the top.
In cases where a parent falls behind, the parent who is owed money can go to local child support agencies and ask for help in collecting the back pay. In other cases, the child support agencies can go after the delinquent parent on his or her own. Typically this happens when the parent owed money has had to go on government assistance and the government then goes looking for someone else to help foot the bill.
How does it work?
Wage garnishments don’t happen easily and are usually only allowed when a court grants permission. For example, if a credit card company is owed money it could not garnish your wages until it had convinced a judge to sign an order requiring your employer to withhold a share of your wages. This isn’t how it works with back child support though, which Minnesota law allows to be garnished without court approval.
In Minnesota, the Department of Human Services authorizes local child support agencies to withhold income from delinquent parents who have fallen behind on payments. To do this, the child support agency only needs to provide the employer with a notice to withhold support. At this point, your employer has 14 days to begin withholding the required share of your wages and can even be held in contempt of court if they refuse.
Can you fight it?
It’s very difficult to fight a wage garnishment once child support arrearages have begun to mount. Judges tend to be unsympathetic to all but a few convincing reasons. One such good reason would be if the amount of money the child support agency claims is owed is incorrect. Another is if you served as primary physical custodian during the period the arrearages cover, meaning you should not have been paying support during that time in the first place. Finally, it’s possible to argue the amount garnished is actually not in the child’s best interest because it could place you in such dire financial straits that you would be unable to provide a stable home.
How much can they take?
In Minnesota, the law is clear that there are limits on the amount of money that can be garnished from a person’s paycheck. For normal creditors, including credit card companies or medical debt collectors, the most that can be garnished is 25 percent of your disposable income.
However, this limit rises when dealing with child support debt. Federal law says that those who are currently supporting another spouse or child can have up to 50 percent of their disposable earnings garnished while those who support only themselves can have up to 60 percent taken. Finally, Minnesota Statutes Section 571.922 says that if the person is more than 12 weeks in arrears, an additional five percent of their disposable income can be garnished, meaning the maximum rises to 65 percent, assuming the right set of facts.
An experienced Minnesota family law attorney can help walk you through the difficult process of divorce, including offering advice on confusing financial issues such as alimony and helping negotiate emotional subjects like child custody arrangements. For more information on divorce in Minnesota, along with a variety of other topics, contact Joseph M. Flanders of Flanders Law Firm at (612) 424-0398.
Source: “Minnesota’s Child Support Laws,” published at House.Leg.State.MN.US.
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