What’s happening
The IRS sent your employer an order to send part of every paycheck to the IRS. The IRS calls this a wage levy. Most people call it a garnishment. Your employer has to follow the order.
This isn’t a one-time thing. It keeps taking money every payday until the IRS stops it, or until the debt is paid.
The IRS usually sends a lot of letters before this happens. The last one is a “final notice.” If those letters went to an old address or got lost in a pile, the garnishment can feel like it came out of nowhere. That happens more than you’d think.
What the IRS can do, and what it can’t
The IRS has more power than a normal debt collector. They don’t need a judge’s OK. They aren’t limited to a small slice of your pay. You get to keep a set amount based on your family size and filing status. The rest can go to the IRS.
But the law puts limits on the IRS too. They have to stop the garnishment when:
- it leaves you unable to pay basic bills like rent, food, and utilities
- you set up a payment plan with the IRS
- the debt is paid, or the IRS has run out of time to collect
That’s where we come in.
How we fight it
First, we check whether you really owe it. Lots of garnishments are based on the wrong number. Maybe the IRS filed a tax return for you and guessed high. Maybe there are penalties that should come off. Maybe there’s an old audit nobody fought. Fixing the number can change everything.
Then we work to get it stopped. Once you hire us, the IRS deals with us, not you. We show the IRS what your real bills are. If the garnishment is leaving you short, we make that case and ask them to stop it while we work on a fix.
Then we fix the real problem. Getting the garnishment stopped is a big relief. But the debt is still there. Depending on your numbers, the fix might be getting the bill corrected, getting the IRS to pause collection, settling for less, or a payment plan based on what you can really manage.
Good to know: If you got the final notice recently, you may still have the right to ask for an appeal hearing. That can hold off the garnishment while you wait. But the window is short, so call quickly.