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Garnishment, in plain English.
Workzoom defines Garnishment as follows. A garnishment is a court-ordered deduction from employee wages, used to enforce child support, tax debt, or unpaid judgments. Employers are legally required to honour valid...
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The short answer
A garnishment is a court-ordered deduction from employee wages, used to enforce child support, tax debt, or unpaid judgments. Employers are legally required to honour valid garnishment orders and to comply with statutory protected-earnings minimums. Workzoom Payroll supports unlimited garnishments per employee with priority ordering and automatic protected-earnings calculation.
How Garnishment works.
A garnishment is a legally mandated deduction from pay, directed by a court, tax authority, or family support agency and remitted to a third party. The employer acts as collection agent with statutory duties: apply the correct calculation base, respect exempt-earnings floors, order multiple garnishments by priority, and remit on schedule. Failing any of these generally transfers liability to the employer.
Where Garnishment goes wrong.
- Deducting against gross pay when the order specifies disposable earnings after mandatory deductions.
- Multiple orders applied in the sequence they arrived rather than in statutory priority order.
- Continuing to deduct after the balance is satisfied, because the order carries no automatic stop.
Where Garnishment sits between HR and payroll.
Garnishment does not stand alone. The concepts most often paired with it on a Payroll run are Payroll processing. Each is defined elsewhere in this glossary so you can trace the full chain without leaving the site.
How Garnishment runs on Workzoom.
Garnishment is part of the Workzoom Payroll Suite. Workzoom runs HR, workforce, and talent on a single employee record across ten countries: Canada, the United States, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, and the United Kingdom. Full gross-to-net payroll runs live in Canada, the United States, and the Bahamas. Pricing starts at $4 per employee per suite per month.
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