If your wages are garnished can they also take your tax refund?

When your wages are garnished that means you had acquired a debt from a lender (can be mortgage debt, credit card debt, etc.), and your inability/refusal to pay the debt has resulted in the lender filing a judgement against you. The judgement, when approved, will allow the lender to go after your wages if you have disposable income. The judgement can take a maximum of 25% of your disposable income to pay off the debt. They cannot take your tax refund, no matter what. The only entities that has the power to seize someone's tax refund are the IRS and the state governments. Only they have the ability to take it, but they can only do it for three specific reasons. Those reasons being if you owe past taxes, if you have child support bills that you owe and are accumulating, and/or if you have been defaulting on your student loans. A tax refund cannot be seized to settle a private debt owed to a lender.

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