Notification

• The IRS imposes a wage levy after it has evaluated the tax and applicable fees and penalties and sent you a bill demanding payment. If you still don't pay --- or make arrangements to pay --- the tax, the IRS must send you a levy notice no less than 30 days prior to the levy. It may leave the levy notice at your residence or workplace, give it to you in person or send it by certified or registered mail to your last known address.
  
  

Appeal

• You have 30 days after receiving the notice to appeal the wage levy. If you want to appeal, contact the IRS and ask a manager to review your case, or file an appeal with the appeals office stated on your levy notice. The appeals process allows you to discuss why you're disputing the levy, including you've already paid the balance due before the IRS sent you the levy notice; you weren't given a chance to dispute the assessed balance; the IRS is wrong in its evaluation; you were in automatic stay bankruptcy when the IRS sent you the levy notice; or the statute of limitations for collecting the tax --- 10 years after the tax was assessed --- has expired.
  
  

Employer Responsibility

• If you don't respond to the levy notice within 30 days, the IRS forwards a notice to your employer to begin deducting from your paychecks. Your employer must comply with the wage levy or it can be held liable for the amount due. Typically, the employer is required to begin the withholding by the employee's next regularly scheduled pay date. Unlike ordinary wage garnishments, which often state the precise amount to withhold on the paperwork, the IRS has its own formula for calculating wage levies. Your employer must use Publication 1494, which is included in the notice of levy, to determine the amount of your pay that's exempt from the levy. It mails your payments directly to the IRS until the balance is satisfied or until the IRS releases the levy.
  
  

Considerations

• The IRS releases the levy if you pay off the debt; enter into an installment arrangement; the levy is causing you financial hardship; the statute of limitations expired; or you can prove that releasing the levy will help the IRS to collect the tax. The IRS may stop the levy if it didn't follow its own procedures or if it didn't send you a bill demanding payment and a levy notice prior to imposing the levy. Your employer can't stop the wage levy unless the IRS tells it to.