I recently received a notice that an adjustment was made to my income taxes for a garnishment from a company of whom I have no knowledge. I can't even relate it to an OC or anything. Do I need to go to the court to try fix this or what recourse do I have it the order has already been given? I don't know this company and/or who they represent.
Can you possibly provide a little more information? Are you saying that you were supposed to receive a tax refund and that refund has been garnished? It's my understanding that in most states tax refunds are generally only offset by debts like unpaid federal student loans or past due federal/state taxes. But I don't think that's the case in every state...there may be some that allow private entities to come after your tax refund as well. Have you pulled your credit reports to see what judgments/liens are showing up for any old debts? That should help guide you in the right direction. If someone is garnishing, then they clearly already have a judgment against you.
No state court judgment for a private debt has the power to directlygarnish either federal income tax refunds or federal pension benefits of any kind. Child support and certain other public debt can be directlygarnished upon order of a state court judge but not for any private debts. Once the funds from those sources are deposited in a local bank account it might become an entirely different matter. Credit reports are not entirely reliable sources of information. A judgment may not show up on a credit report but might be on record at the county clerk's office. A bankruptcy may or may not show up in a credit report as well. Check with the clerk of the court, not some silly credit report. Credit reports are never reliable sources of information about anything no matter how well acceptable they might be to lenders Not necessarily. Some states do allow for pre judgment garnishment of bank accounts or other assets. In some states they don't even need to have a case filed against the debtor but I can't think of any state that allows pre-judgment garnishment without the order of a court of law. The sole exception is federal tax liens which are not actual liens at all but rather simple notices of lien. An example of that is to be found here in Oklahoma and maybe in other states as well. In Oklahoma it is illegal to file any lien without it having been so ordered by a court of law. Filing a lien without court order is called sham legal process in Oklahoma and is punishable by up to 2 years in prison. Naturally the State of Oklahoma cannot throw the IRS in any state prison so they had to develop a separate process to avoid that problem once the law was passed and the legislature was alerted to the fact that strict enforcement of their new law made criminals out of the IRS. (LOL). Of course, there are a great many individuals who firmly believe that anything the IRS does is a criminal act. (LOL).
If it's due to a defaulted federal student loan, then they can garnish your tax refund with no judgment necessary.
I think the others are right, student loans, child support and gov't debts (like past due taxes) are the only reasons your federal tax return can be garnished.
If it's your state tax return, it could also be money due to the state or a county or city, like traffic tickets.
Very true Bill...credit reports aren't completely reliable. However, it's never a bad idea to quickly pull them and see what you find before spending a bunch of time on the phone. The OP might just find the information needed to connect the dots and determine what debt the garnishment is for. Also, aren't there some states that still may allow garnishment of state refunds by private creditors? The OP hasn't stated if this is a Fed or State return yet, but I thought I've read about this in the past. MI perhaps?
Yes, but it is much faster to just go to the county court house and ask to see one's public record. They will have it on a computer screen and let anyone see it. Public information. Maybe a quick phone call to the county clerk will do the trick too. Many courts now have that information on line as well. We do here in Oklahoma and I can pull my public record every day and even every hour if I wish. I do pull mine every day and often 2 or 3 times a day. Anyone else can pull my public record as well just as easily. All they have to do is go to oscn.net and enter my name or anyone else s into a search box and there it is. Quick and easy. I currently have 5 cases on record, one of them a recent uncontested divorce in which I was the plaintiff. An earlier one was a credit card case and I won that one. Ran the lawyer off like a whipped puppy. I lost the other ones. I'll most likely lose the current one too but that don't worry me one little bit. Probably so. [/quote] Also, aren't there some states that still may allow garnishment of state refunds by private creditors?[/quote]I don't know about that so can't answer.
Thank you all for your advice. I did mean to include that it was for the State. They did not try to garnish Federal. Also, I don't know who these people are and due to my relocation, I never received any correspondence until know. I am assuming that I should go to the court and try to file some kind of motion to stop this. ?????
Maybe but before you can do that you will need to find out who is doing the garnishing and why. I'd start by asking the clerk of the court to see my public profile and once they showed me that I would look for any judgments and garnishment orders and ask to see the file on that case or cases. Then I would know more about what is going on and why.
I would suggest calling or writing the state treasurer to find out who garnished your refund. Calling a court clerk won't help unless you are lucky enough to call the court where the judgment was entered, if there was a judgment. And you did mention relocating. An attorney (which I am) would need more information.
Are you suggesting that a garnishment might have been instituted without a preceding judgment? It is my understanding that such can be done in some states but not in most. In fact, if that were done in Oklahoma whoever did it would quickly be on the inside looking out even if s/he were an attorney. We have what is called a sham legal process law. In Oklahoma it is illegal to put a lien or garnishment against someone unless they first have a court ordered judgment in place. The penalty is 2 years in prison plus damages to the injured party. Then once they put that law in place they realized that since IRS liens are put in place and executed without benefit of court proceedings the state would have to throw the IRS in jail for at least a couple of years for each lien they filed. (LOL). Of course they couldn't do that so they had to institute a special work around for the IRS. What about geographical jurisdiction? Sounds to me like there might be a question of whether or not any court which issued a judgment had geographical jurisdiction to act. If not then there is a chance the judgment could be vacated.
