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If you live in Texas you may be surprised to learn that most creditors cannot garnish your wages in Texas. There are actually only four states in the United States that prevent 100% of a wage earners paycheck from withholding to pay creditors. North and South Carolina and Pennsylvania are the other three states. There are a few occasions that the State of Texas does allow the wages of workers to be withheld for non-payment of debt. We will look at the reasons in one of the paragraphs below.

If you have delinquent debt, most of the time a creditor can take documentation of nonpayment to the court and ask for a judgment to collect the debt. One of the ways this judgment can be used is by sending it to the employer for withholding wages that are due the employee who owes the debt. When an employee experiences payment problems with a creditor is it a signal that there may be other financial difficulties as well. If the creditor can garnish wages in Texas then the problems the employee faces are exacerbated because the employee will take home even less money with which to make bill payments.

Most of the unsecured creditors will try to collect debt through wage withholdings. Creditors with a secured debt will not have to resort to these collection efforts because they can repossess and sell the property that is security for the debt in order to pay the debt. A car or a home will be the collateral for such secured debt and repossession of the home and the car will generally take care of the nonpayment issue. All the unsecured creditor has is the debtor’s promise to make the payments. There is no tangible asset that can be repossessed and sold for payment of the debt. Earnings are an asset that a creditor wants to try to get for debt payment. In you live in the State of Texas, your wages cannot be garnished to pay the debt.

One hundred percent of your wages are exempt from this type transaction in Texas. Credit card companies, payday loan companies, and other unsecured creditors will be barred from taking these assets. If you are delinquent on your taxes to the local, state, or federal agency to which you must may payment you will find that you can lose your wages to garnishment to one of these agencies. The Internal Revenue Service and the Texas Comptroller can notify the employer to withhold your income to pay taxes that you owe.

If you have been court ordered to support your children with money support payments you will have your wages garnished for nonpayment. In you live in the State of Texas and you have been ordered to support your children the State will take your wages to pay to the custodial parent whether or not you have a good payment history. When the order goes into effect, your wages are automatically withheld. If you have student loans the Department of Education can take your wages if you do not make the required payment on the note(s). There will be no need for this agency to obtain a court order, because the order is granted to them automatically through an administrative process.

You do have certain rights and obligations when you live in Texas when wage garnishment laws are used. If you have reason to believe that you may lose wages to a garnishment and you are unsure of your rights, you should contact an attorney or financial advisor who is familiar with the laws in that State. Your wages can be garnished in Texas if the agency seeking to get an order to withhold the income is eligible to do so.