Fort Lauderdale Wage Garnishment Lawyer

Fort Lauderdale Wage Garnishment Attorney

Your income is crucial to maintaining your day-to-day life. If you lose portions of your income, it can prevent you from providing for your needs, paying your bills, and supporting your family. When a creditor garnishes your wages, it can be a stressful situation. It can be especially overwhelming when the creditor is the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). It’s crucial that you talk with a Fort Lauderdale wage garnishment lawyer to address garnishment quickly.

If you ignore tax debt or garnishment by the IRS, the issue will not go away. You have to take steps to fix it, and an attorney can help you with this process. An experienced Fort Lauderdale tax debt settlement lawyer can work with the IRS on your behalf to find a manageable solution and help protect your financial future.

Managing Your Financial Future With TaxSmith, LLC

It can feel counterintuitive to hire a tax attorney when you have tax debt. The right attorney can help you save money in the long term, however, by determining if you qualify for less costly solutions to wage garnishment. At TaxSmith, LLC, we have collective decades of legal experience in tax codes, and we have helped many taxpayers navigate their tax debt. There are solutions if you can’t pay off your debt, and we want to help you find them.

At TaxSmith, LLC, we know how frustrating and overwhelming it can be to deal with tax debt and wage garnishment. You may feel like you don’t have any options. Our firm can help you determine if there are other methods to address your debt that limit the financial hardship you are dealing with.

The nearest Taxpayer Assistance Center to Fort Lauderdale is located at 1248 N University Drive in Plantation. When you work with our firm, we can help you prepare for a meeting at this center or represent your interests to the IRS.

The Process of Wage Garnishment

The IRS does not start by garnishing wages when taxpayers fail to make payments. First, the agency will send notices to a taxpayer about nonpayment. If the IRS does not receive payment or communication, it may take other steps. This includes collection actions like wage garnishment, bank levies, or property liens. The IRS sent nearly 314,000 notices to third parties requesting levies in 2024, which include bank and wage levies.

It will take the actions it needs to recover payment if you do nothing. Unlike other creditors, the IRS does not have to get court approval to garnish your wages. If you ignore the notice of nonpayment and the notice of garnishment, you could find portions of your wages being sent directly to the IRS. This can cause financial issues in your life, especially if you rely on everything in each paycheck to make ends meet.

Wage levies can impact many types of income, including hourly wages, yearly salaries, governmental benefits, and self-employed accounts receivable. It can also affect bonuses, commissions, profit sharing, periodic pension payments, termination pay, and workers’ compensation wage benefits.

What You Can Do to Stop Wage Garnishment

In 2024, the IRS assisted almost 62.2 million taxpayers. The agency wants to help taxpayers and is open to negotiation if wage garnishment or other collection actions are putting you in financial hardship.

One of the options for taxpayers is resolving their debt. By negotiating with the IRS, you could secure penalty abatement, either a first-time abatement or an abatement for just cause. You may also be able to get an installment agreement, also called a payment plan, giving you more time to pay the debt.

Offer in Compromise

Another option for resolving the debt is an offer in compromise. An offer in compromise happens when the IRS settles your entire tax debt for a lesser sum. They are very hard to secure. Out of more than 33,000 proposed offers in compromise in 2024, the IRS accepted 7,199. However, if you are eligible and get approved, this is an exceptional way to clear your debt for less than you owe and avoid collection actions.

There are other methods of addressing wage garnishment, including negotiating for a lower amount of garnishment, applying for an exemption, or even filing for bankruptcy in extreme situations. An attorney can review all of these options.

FAQs About Fort Lauderdale, FL Wage Garnishment Law

How Bad Is Wage Garnishment?

Wage garnishment can cause serious financial hardship, especially if you live paycheck to paycheck. The percentage taken varies, but it can limit your income substantially, even preventing you from paying all your bills. Some creditors can also take other actions in addition to wage garnishment, such as levying funds directly from your bank account or placing claims on your property.

How Long After a Default Judgment Can Wages Be Garnished?

If a creditor goes to court to recover a debt you owe, and you don’t respond, the court will likely enter a default judgment against you, which means granting the creditor what they asked for if they met the burden of proof. Then, the creditor can begin the garnishment. The creditor could garnish your wages until the debt is fully repaid or until another limit set by the court is reached. An attorney can help you understand your state’s laws.

What Is the Maximum Wage Garnishment in Florida?

Most creditors in Florida can only garnish a certain amount of your wages under federal law. This limitation is either 25% of your wages or how much of your disposable income exceeds 30 times the federal minimum wage, whichever value is lower.

However, some creditors do not have these same limits. This includes state and federal tax agencies recovering unpaid taxes. Discussing your case with a tax law attorney can help you determine what limits may apply to your case.

How Do I Stop Wage Garnishment After Paying Off Debt?

If you have paid your debt in full, wage garnishment should end once the payment has been processed. What this time frame is for processing will depend on the creditor and other circumstances. You can talk with an attorney to determine what is reasonable and whether you should expect some of your wages to be returned. An attorney can also help you navigate a situation where you are being illegally garnished.

Don’t Let Wage Garnishment Harm Your Future

You can get control over your financial future. When you work with TaxSmith, LLC, our firm can help you review the options available and how to effectively negotiate a resolution with the IRS. Contact our firm today and learn how we can help you stop or limit wage garnishment.