You can create and review garnishments for fees for US employees in the Payroll > Garnishments screen of the People feature. The application does not automatically add fee garnishment orders to the employee's record, and you need to manually add them.
Before You Begin: Before you add garnishment fees, you need to set up the necessary third-party payees to which Dayforce sends the fee payments. You do this in Payroll Setup > Third Party Payees.
There are two types of Garnishment Fees.
- Employer Fees: Employer Fees are fees that by statute are permitted to be withheld from the employee and retained by the employer to offset the administration of garnishment. The Fee limits are based on the garnishment type and the jurisdiction (Primary Work State or Override Work State).
- Support Agency Fees: Support Agency Fees are fees that by statute are permitted to be withheld from the employee and remitted to the state agency to offset the administration of the garnishment. Support Agency Fees are only permitted for Child Support and Spousal Support. The Fee limits are based on the garnishment type and the jurisdiction (Primary Work State or Override Work State).
Depending on the state’s rule, the fee might be permitted to reduce the garnishment withheld to withhold the fee.
Important: For Child Support and Spousal Support, it is possible that the order specify both an Employer Fee and a Support Agency Fee.
Garnishment orders for fees exist as records that are nested within the details of a primary (that is, main) garnishment order. However, the application still treats them as separate records that are processed independent of the primary garnishment order. They also appear as a separate post-tax deduction in the employee's pay.
If the employee has other active garnishments, the application processes the fee garnishment order in the default processing sequence for the jurisdiction. However, like with primary garnishments, you can override the processing sequence of fee garnishments.
The amount that the application is allowed to garnish for fees is subject to the requirements of the jurisdiction. This means that the application might deduct less than what you define for the fee garnishment, or might not deduct any amount.
The following earning statement shows a primary garnishment and garnishment fee:
In the Payroll > Garnishments screen, when you select a primary garnishment order from the list, and it is a type of garnishment that allows fees, the application enables the Fees tab, as shown in the following screenshot:
Note: The Fees tab is only enabled for a garnishment record if fees are supported for that type of garnishment.
When you click the Fees tab, the application displays a separate list for creating fee garnishments. There are no garnishment fees added to the list, by default, and you need to manually add them. The following screenshot shows the separate list for creating fee garnishments:
When you add a new fee garnishment to the list, the application expands its settings, which are split into the Details and Payee Details sections. The following screenshot shows the Details section:
The following screenshot shows the Payee Details section:
There are fewer settings than for the primary garnishment order because some details of the primary order cascade down to the fee garnishment order. For example, the garnishment fee record shares the order number, issuing agency, and garnishment agency of the primary order.
There is no Name field for fee garnishments. The name of the garnishment order is the name of the primary order suffixed with "- Fees". For example, "Support Garn - Fees".
The Type setting for garnishment fees only displays options that can be associated with the primary garnishment order. In this example, the primary garnishment order has the Current Support - 502 type defined, and so you can only select the Support Employer Fee - 519 option for the arrears order.
- For Child Support or Spousal Support’s Employer Fees that are retained by the employer, the Type should be Support Employer Fee – 519.
- For Child Support’s Support Agency Fees that are remitted to the State Agency, the Type should be Support Agency Fee – 535, Clearinghouse Fee, or Annual R&D Fee, depending on the Issuing State.
- For Creditor Garnishment Employer Fees that are retained by the employer, the Type should be Creditor Garnishment Employer Fee – 521.
- For State Tax Levy Employer Fees that are retained by the employer, the Type should be State Levy Employer Fee – 520.
- For Criminal Restitution Employer Fees that are retained by the employer, the Type should be Criminal Restitution Employer Fee – 522.
- For Student Loan Employer Fees that are retained by the employer, the Type should be Student Loan Employer Fee – 522.
Note: The settings for fee garnishments are similar to those in the General Details, Order Details, and Parameters sections of primary garnishment orders. You can refer to the documentation for these sections for descriptions of specific settings. See Create Garnishments for US Employees.
When a primary garnishment record has an active fee garnishment, the application displays an icon with a tooltip description in the Attributes column, as shown in the following screenshot:
If the fee garnishment is no longer active, the icon in the Attributes column appears grayed out.
When you end-date or deactivate a primary garnishment record for a US employee, the application gives you the option to automatically end-date or deactivate its associated arrears or fee orders as well.
For example, when you clear the Active checkbox in the Properties tab of a primary garnishment order that has arrears and fees, the application displays the following dialog box, giving you the option to deactivate just the arrears or fees or both. You can also click the No option to keep the arrears and fees active:
The application also displays a similar dialog box when you enter a past date in the Effective To field in the Properties tab of a primary garnishment order that has arrears or fees.
See also: