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Examining wage garnishment guidelines for child support

Being awarded custody of your children in Clarksville is only half the battle in ensuring that you will be able to continue to care for them following your divorce; you have to then also hope that your ex-spouse will fulfill his or her obligation. Yet as many of those that we here at Runyon and Runyon have worked with in the past can attest to, that hope is often short-lived. If your ex-spouse has begun accumulate an impressive amount of child support arrears, you may begin to have to search for other methods through which that money can be collected. One collection tool you may want to consider is a wage garnishment.

Section 26-2-108 of the Annotated Code of Tennessee clearly states that both child support and alimony payments are not exempt from wage garnishments. In determining the appropriate amount to withhold from your ex-spouses earnings, the court allows for as much as 25 percent of his or her weekly disposable earnings to be collected. Either that, or the amount by which his or her weekly income exceeds 30 times that earned with the federal minimum wage. For the purposes of a wage garnishment, “disposable earnings” include all income left over after taxes and any other amounts required by law to be withdrawn have been taken.

If your ex-spouse has other dependent children that he or she is responsible for, then the law allows him or her to protect an additional $2.50 per child per week. At the same time, federal law may allow you to have an additional five percent withheld for any arrears greater than 12 weeks. More information on this and other methods of collecting child support can be found by continuing to explore our site.