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Wage garnishment and commission based pay

Needalifeboat's picture

Does anyone have experience with child support when the dad's job is 100% commission based? BM is high conflict and because of that SO has decided to have his support taken out of his check instead of giving it directly to her. He may not always make enough though in one check to cover it. I looked it up and it seems like they can take 60% of his wages toward support. So if that doesn't cover the correct amount and he has arrears, will they just take the extra out of the next larger check?

hereiam's picture

Does he have savings to take from to pay the whole amount if his paycheck is short? Instead of having his wages garnished, why doesn't he just set it up so he sends it to Child Support Enforcement and they send it to BM?

Where I live, my sister tried to get her ex-husband's wages garnished (he was not paying) and the state wouldn't do it because he was commissioned.

I never recommend for people to voluntarily have their paychecks garnished. You lose all control and the state inevitably screws it up somehow.

Needalifeboat's picture

Okay, that sounds like a good idea. At least then we'll still cut out having to deal with her directly. He always pays it, no matter what he makes. If he's short he sends a week. If he gets a good check he'll sometimes pay a month at a time to cover it for a while.

Needalifeboat's picture

Well that would work out fine, as long as we could just send the state the difference and they disburse to her. It'll be a bit of a pain but better than giving her checks and her constantly putting SD12 up to asking him when he's sending it. Then, if we mail it, she's on him till it arrives. As if we have control over the post office.

Needalifeboat's picture

Up until I came along, he was giving her cash. I couldn't believe he could be so stupid and told him (as nicely as I could) that he needed to have proof of giving the CS!

Aniki-Moderator's picture

My exH did not earn a set salary and paid CS based on a percentage. IOW, 28% of his pay (after taxes). So if he earned $1000 after taxes, $280 was for child support. And that check was sent directly to the circuit clerk, who forwarded it to the BM. There was a lot of trouble with her, so having the circuit clerk send her the payment worked out best.

Calypso1977's picture

garnishment of your check also exposes you to having other monies captured.

for example, if you receive a check for life insurance when grandma dies - if your check is being garnished and you are in arrears? the state will take the dollar amount that you are in arrears out of that life insurance check.

also, your employer gets that notice of garnishment. they dont know if its voluntary or court ordered. id be pretty embarassed if my boss received a court order to garnish my paycheck, where he may not know whether i scammed the system or i was doing it for simplicity.

Needalifeboat's picture

Hmmm...I hadn't thought about that part of it, the employer knowing. My exH works for the state and a lot of dads have CS sent directly out of their checks. I thought it was a commonplace thing. I'll have to ask SO if that is an issue for him, his employer knowing...

Sounds like setting it up through the state on his own as mentioned above may be the best option all around.

Calypso1977's picture

its my understanding that when its garnished, wehther voluntary or involuntary, teh letter comes from teh IRS to the payroll department and its simply an order of garnishment. There is no way of knowing whether the order was intitiated by the employee or the court.

my fiance's comes out of his check but its a payroll deduction that he set up through direct deposit. it comes out of his check and gets deposited to BM's account. this is only possible if the BM is willing to give her bank account # to the CS payer. In our case, she was fine with it. this might be why you think the dads are having it taken out of their checks - could be this type of arrangement rather than formal garnishment.

Oh, the things we've thought about doing having that account #.....