{"id":540,"date":"2008-02-09T17:43:55","date_gmt":"2008-02-09T22:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacefulhippo.wordpress.com\/2008\/02\/09\/540\/"},"modified":"2008-02-09T17:43:55","modified_gmt":"2008-02-09T22:43:55","slug":"540","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/2008\/02\/09\/540\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have determined that, indeed, my Disability check cannot be garnished to pay a debt&#8230; unless that debt is owed to the IRS or another federal agency.&nbsp; Big sigh of relief.&nbsp; Besides what I have posted below, if you are receiving SSI it may not be garnished even under the following conditions; I didn&#8217;t include that because I don&#8217;t receive SSI.<\/p>\n<table align=\"center\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"whiteruled2-td\" valign=\"top\" width=\"25%\">\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Q.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ssa.gov\/deposit\/img\/q_1.gif\" height=\"43\" width=\"48\"><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"grayruled2-td\"><b>Can Social Security benefits be garnished by creditors to pay a debt? <\/b><\/td>\n<td width=\"20%\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"graycellredruled2-td\" valign=\"top\" width=\"25%\">\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ssa.gov\/deposit\/img\/a_1.gif\" height=\"35\" width=\"47\"><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"redruled2-td\" valign=\"top\">\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.socialsecurity.gov\/OP_Home\/ssact\/title02\/0207.htm\" target=\"_self\">Section 207 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 407)<\/a> protects Social Security benefits from assignment, levy, or garnishment. However, the law provides five exceptions: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Section<br \/>\n459 of the Act (42 U.S.C. 659) allows Social Security benefits to be<br \/>\ngarnished to enforce child support and\/or alimony obligations; \n          <\/li>\n<li>Section<br \/>\n6334 (c) of the Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. 6334 (c)) allows<br \/>\nbenefits to be levied to collect unpaid Federal taxes; \n          <\/li>\n<li>Section<br \/>\n3402 (P) of the Internal Revenue Code allows beneficiaries to elect to<br \/>\nhave a percentage of their benefits withheld and paid to the Internal<br \/>\nRevenue Service to satisfy their Federal income tax liability for the<br \/>\ncurrent year; \n          <\/li>\n<li>The Debt Collection<br \/>\nAct of 1996 (Public Law 104-134) allows benefits to be withheld and<br \/>\npaid to another Federal agency to pay a non-tax debt the beneficiary<br \/>\nowes to that agency: and \n          <\/li>\n<li>The Tax Payer<br \/>\nRelief Act of 1997 (Public Law 105-34) authorizes the Internal Revenue<br \/>\nService to collect overdue federal tax debts of beneficiaries by<br \/>\nlevying up to 15 percent of each monthly payment until the debt is paid.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<p>The<br \/>\nSocial Security Administration&#8217;s responsibility for protecting benefits<br \/>\nagainst legal process and assignment usually ends when the beneficiary<br \/>\nis paid. However, once paid, benefits continue to be protected under<br \/>\nsection 207 of the Act as long as they are identifiable as Social<br \/>\nSecurity benefits using normal banking practices. For example, only<br \/>\nsocial security benefits are deposited into a particular bank account. <\/p>\n<p> If a creditor tries to garnish your social security<br \/>\ncheck, inform them that unless one of the five exceptions apply, your<br \/>\nbenefits can not be garnished. You also may want to provide this same<br \/>\ninformation to your financial institution and seek legal assistance if<br \/>\nyou believe it is needed.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have determined that, indeed, my Disability check cannot be garnished to pay a debt&#8230; unless that debt is owed to the IRS or another federal agency.&nbsp; Big sigh of relief.&nbsp; Besides what I have posted below, if you are receiving SSI it may not be garnished even under the following conditions; I didn&#8217;t include [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}