Why do employers hate it when an employee's wages are garnished?

Question

Why do employers hate it so much if an employee has their wages garnished? Wage garnishment should only be an inconvenience and burden to the individual person being garnished, and not the company. Yet, it seems like employers try to avoid garnished employees, like vampires avoid sunlight. Why are employers so apprehensive about garnishment?

Answer 1

Two answers really. Number one, garnishing makes for more work on the part of the accountant. Not only does the company have to make this extra deduction but it usually involves sending the garnished amount to an electronic account which may not be a part of their payroll companies current "network". It also involves additional work in terms of tax accounting. Secondly, if the deduction is not made (for whatever reason), the company contacts the garnishee's company rather than direct contact to the garnishee (legal reasons). Overall its just a big pain and it also reflects on the reputation of the employee in terms of maintaining financial responsibilities which may transfer to an adequate maintaining of work responsibilities.

Answer 2

The reason that employers hate it when an employee is garnished is that it requires extra paperwork. Depending on who is doing the garnishment (I usually saw it for child support, so the court was garnishing on behalf of the custodial parent), you need to fill out this special document with the employee's name, etc., the time period of the payroll check, the payroll amounts, and the amount being garnished. Also, this requires that the payroll department may need to manually calculate the garnishment if the order states "20% of net pay". Then, after doing all that, the payroll department needs to write a check to the garnisher and get it in the mail within a given period of time. Because there is a withholding amount and a check being written, the accounting department also has to set up a special account to make sure that the garnishment has been paid.

Are you getting the idea?

PS I like the analogy "like vampires avoid sunlight"-cute!

Answer 3

Yeah, what the first person said as well as the fact that employers figure that the employee has unresolved "issues" from their past and perhaps the employer doesn't want to have to deal with those issues. My partner has $$$$ he owes in student loans. He defaulted on his loans because of his stupidity to fill out a simple deferment form. So his paycheck at this last job was garnished. That lasted about 3 months then he was "let go"...maybe because of the garnishment...maybe not. All in all it's more paperwork that the employer has to deal with.

Answer 4

i think that is how they show their concern for their employee. usually, those garnishment is about responsibility, if their financial issue is being brought up in your line of work, it looks bad meaning the employee is encountering difficulty or suffering in some kind of way that may affect his/her function at work.

either it is for federal issue (usually some tax problem), state issue (traffic violence or tickets, licensing or family law-being child support or spousal support), there are multiple cases that being presented that cause the employer worry about.

some people ended up doing criminal act towards their job and pretty sure, if you own a business, you will take precaution and do not want to see it coming. if the employee is disturbed, think about the productivity and how it is going to affect their employees performance or if there are something worst like a nightmare lurking behind those working mind....

Answer 5

Well to be truthful, empolyers will look at this like if the person cannot be responsible enough to pay their bills then how can they be responsible enough to be a good employee. Just the way it is.. Take care Heather

Answer 6

It makes more paperwork for employers who do their own payroll (vs. sending it out to a service) and it leaves more room for payroll mistakes.

Answer 7

which would be unusual. how plenty funds became into lacking? became into the worker prosecuted for robbery? without information the worker took the money, the state has no foundation to garnish his verify.