lien

A wage garnishment or wage levy is a legal seizure of property. It is an effective method of tax collection used by both the IRS and many States. The IRS or States will issue a wage garnishment to seize all or part of a taxpayer’s wages if a taxpayer does not respond to collection letters or fails to live up to an agreement to re-pay back taxes. A wage garnishment does not take the taxpayer’s financial situation into account and is often thought of by collection agents more as an “attention getter” than a true resolution to a tax problem.

The information below contains information about the various collection procedures used by the IRS and State tax agencies to collect outstanding tax debts.