Spouses who are divorced still have a continuing obligation to render financial and emotional support to their kids. Regrettably, a lot of children grow up lacking the financial support they require when parents fail to honour court-directed child support. Nonetheless, it's becoming increasingly difficult for deadbeat parents to refuse to pay child support. Stringent legislation has been endorsed to establish and administer child support directives. Furthermore, both federal and state agencies have potent child-support collection mechanisms at their disposal. One such collection tool is wage garnishment. Read on for further insight.
Wage garnishment
This is a method sanctioned by the courts in Australia in an effort to collect payments owed by the culprit or defendant. In this particular case, the debt is related to child support, although garnishment may also be enforced in matters dealing with tax debt as well as criminal fines. What occurs with a garnishment directive is that the court directs the defendant's employer, referred to as the garnishee informing him or her that the accused is in debt, and that the employer should start garnishing their salary or wages.
As a result, the employer is expected to withhold a particular portion of the employee's monthly pay check for purposes of paying child support. The money is usually sent to the parent who lives with or takes care of the child or children. Failure to act according to the garnishment order may result in legal penalties for the employer including fines or even jail imprisonment.
What's the maximum sum to be garnished?
Garnishment works in a different way based on the defendant's form of income and debt. If the defendant receives income from public benefits, social security, retirement or disability benefits, that sort of income cannot usually be garnished, irrespective of how massive the debt is. However, if the debt is connected to unpaid child support, then creditors are able to garnish almost any form of income that the defendant gets every month.
Therefore, child support is an exception to the rule. The maximum sum for wage garnishments is determined by federal and state laws. This means that it's not the entire wages or salary of the defendant that's withheld to pay for child support but a specific percentage.
Wage garnishment is a powerful debt collection tool as far as child support orders are concerned. You can seek the legal services of a family lawyer to help you enforce your child support court order.
