What to Expect

• In most regards, a government employee is like any other type of employee. Thus, as long as the state where the employee lives allows wage garnishment, his wages can be garnished to satisfy outstanding debts. The big difference is that when garnishing a government employee's wages, debtors will need to cross more bureaucratic red tape.
  
  

The Process

• The debtor will need to serve the agency for which the employee works with an Application for Federal Employee Commercial Garnishment, which is available to through the federal government's Office of Personnel Management. The completed form then gets mailed back to an official. The government's Code of Federal Regulations contains a list of officials and guidance to help you find the one who is to receive your paperwork.
  
  

If Government is Owed

• If a government employee owes the government money, Uncle Sam doesn't need a court order to garnish his paycheck. So for instance, Joe Smith, who works for the Department of Homeland Security, ended up owing the Internal Revenue Service a cool $5,000, which he did not have the money to pay at tax time. The IRS can garnish his wages without the employee ever seeing the inside of a courtroom.
  
  

Special Protections

• The Consumer Credit Protection Act covers all employees, including those that work for the government. Aside from prohibiting that an employee be discharged because he owes a debt, the act also limits the amount of money that can be garnished in a single pay period is no more than 25 percent of his disposable income. Disposable income is determined after accounting for things like child support payments and bankruptcy collections. Thus, the amount garnished may actually be well below 25 percent of an employee's salary.