Garnishments

WinTeam allows garnishments to be differentiated by lien types, to set priorities for garnishment withholdings based on federal, state, and jurisdictional (court) requirements, limit garnishments to applicable legal limits and allow for the calculation and deduction of employer and agency administrative fees associated with the garnishment. Garnishments that may be required to deduct from an employee’s paycheck include the following types:

Tax–Federal
Tax–State
Support–Child
Support–Spouse
Support–Other Dependent Care
Bankruptcy
Federal Agency
Student Loan
Other Creditor
Voluntary Agreement

Garnishments are generally described as involuntary deductions for which neither the employer nor the employee has control. The employer is required by law to deduct a certain amount of the employee’s pay and send (remit) it to a person or government agency to satisfy the employee’s debt. Generally, failure to deduct and remit a withholding order or levy from a court or government agency, will subject the employer to a penalty equal to the amount required to be deducted, plus possible fines and interest.

Garnishments and their associated administrative fees are set up on the Other Deduction Codes screen and then added to the Employee Master File record for the employee being garnished.

Tip: If a withholding order is received for a particular employee and state, you only need to set up one Deduction Code for that particular state's rules. There is no need to set up a separate Deduction Code for each employee's garnishment circumstance since you can indicate the specifics of a garnishment at the employee level.

If there is not enough pay left in the employee’s wages (after any exempt amounts have been taken into consideration) to pay all the orders, the employer must decide (based on the legal documents and state laws) which withholding order should be deducted first (priorities). These priorities determine deduction amounts when several garnishment orders have been received against an employee’s wages.

You may find it helpful to review these topics:

This employee has one garnishment with a linked Admin Fee (Added).

Example of Employee with Garnishment and Admin Fee (Subtracted) based on Limit 4

This employee has a Creditor Garnishment with a Subtract Admin Fee. The fee set up with this garnishment will be subtracted from the Garnishor's payment when it is paid through Accounts Payable. We will see this when we go to Accounts Payable and use the Payroll Other Deductions Type option of “Update to Invoice Entry”.

Example of Employee with 2 Garnishments and 2 Admin Fees (Added) based on Limit 2

This employee has two garnishments, each with a linked Admin Fee.

Based on the setup, one garnishment amount can be satisfied in full, but the other only partially due to the Garnishment Limits met.

Example of Employee with Garnishment using % of Gross based on Limits 3 and 4

This employee has a garnishment using a Percent of Gross and subject to Garnishment Limits 3 and 4. Based on this setup, the Garnishment’s initial calculated amount cannot be taken due to the Garnishment Limits. Limit 4 is the lowest limit in this case and will be the maximum that can be withheld.

Example of Employee with Garnishment based on Limits 3 and 4

This employee has a Garnishment and Admin Fee based on Limits 3 and 4 where the limits altered Administrative Fees, and the Garnishment was affected.

Example of Employee with 2 Garnishments and 4 Admin Fees using Prorated Allocation with Limit 1

This employee has 2 Garnishments, each with 2 Admin Fees with the same priority level. The allocation is set to Prorate.

Garnishments

Common Tasks from Other Deductions Codes

Common Tasks from Employee Other Deductions

Understanding Garnishment Calculations