Every other creditor in your life takes a slice. The IRS takes the loaf and hands you back a slice.
That is not a figure of speech. It is the actual mechanism, it is why an IRS wage levy hits so much harder than people expect, and it is set out in a two-page IRS publication most taxpayers never see even though it arrives with the levy.
How Much the IRS Can Garnish
The IRS does not garnish a percentage of your pay. It exempts a fixed amount based on your filing status, pay period and dependents, and levies everything above it. For 2026, a single taxpayer paid weekly with no dependents keeps $309.62 under IRS Publication 1494. Everything above that goes to the IRS.
Why the IRS Table Works Backwards From Every Other Garnishment
Creditors take a percentage
A judgment creditor is capped at a share. Under the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act the maximum is the lesser of 25 percent of disposable earnings or the amount above thirty times the federal minimum hourly wage. Whatever you earn, three quarters of your disposable earnings is protected.
The IRS leaves you an exempt amount and takes the rest
There is no percentage cap on a federal tax levy. The IRS explains that the exempt amount is based on the standard deduction and an amount determined by the number of dependents you are allowed for the year the levy is served, and the exempt amount is paid to you while the remainder goes to the government.
Work that through and it lands hardest on higher earners. Two people with identical filing status and dependents keep exactly the same dollar amount. The one earning twice as much does not keep twice as much. They lose twice as much.
Reading Publication 1494
The IRS mails Publication 1494 to your employer with the levy, and it is the table that decides your number. The current edition is Rev. 12-2025 and carries the 2026 figures.
Filing status and dependents
Four columns, one per filing status, each broken out by the number of dependents claimed. For 2026, weekly pay, zero dependents, the exempt amounts are $309.62 single, $619.23 married filing joint, $464.42 head of household and $309.62 married filing separate. Each additional dependent adds $101.92 a week.
Pay period
The same table runs daily, weekly, biweekly, semimonthly and monthly. A single filer with no dependents keeps $61.92 daily, $309.62 weekly, $619.23 biweekly, $670.83 semimonthly or $1,341.67 monthly.
Age and blindness
There is a second table adding an amount for taxpayers at least 65 years old or blind. For a single or head of household filer claiming one additional standard deduction, that adds $39.42 a week.
A worked example, the IRS’s own
Publication 1494 works it through. A single taxpayer paid weekly claiming three dependents has $615.38 exempt from levy. If that same taxpayer is over 65 and writes 1 in the additional standard deduction space, $654.80 is exempt, being $615.38 plus $39.42. A married taxpayer filing jointly, paid biweekly, claiming two dependents, has $1,646.16 exempt.
The three-day form nobody returns, and what it costs
Read this part slowly. Your employer gives you a Statement of Dependents and Filing Status to complete and return within three days. If you do not return it in three days, the IRS instructs that your exempt amount is figured as though you were married filing separately with zero dependents.
That is the lowest cell in the table. A married taxpayer with three children who misses the three-day window goes from keeping $924.99 a week to keeping $309.62, because a form sat on a kitchen counter. It is the single most expensive piece of paperwork in the collection process and almost nobody knows the clock is running.
What Counts as Wages, and What Else They Can Reach
Bonuses and commissions
For levy purposes, salary and wages include compensation paid as fees, commissions and bonuses. And a bonus paid separately is not protected by the exempt amount you already received. The IRS states that it would receive the entire bonus, because the exempt amount is tied to the pay period rather than to each payment.
More than one employer
If you have other income sources, the IRS may allocate your exemptions to one source and levy 100 percent of the income from a particular employer. Two jobs does not mean two exempt amounts.
Child support you pay directly
If child support ordered before the levy reached your employer was not built into your exempt amount, the IRS will release from levy the amount needed to pay it. You have to ask, using the number on the levy form, and the same child cannot then be counted as a dependent in the exempt calculation.
Where Exemptions Come From
The federal exempt amount
Standard deduction plus the dependent amount, divided across your pay period, as published each year in Publication 1494.
What New York protects on top
New York’s own collection process is separate and its limits work differently again, taking a share of gross wages rather than exempting a floor. This month’s New York post covers the income execution and how the two compare, and our guide to New York and IRS problems together is the wider picture.
Social Security
Benefits follow a different rule again, which we cover in can the IRS really garnish Social Security benefits.
What to Do With the Number Once You Have It
Work out your exempt amount from the current table, subtract it from your take-home, and that difference is what leaves every pay period until the account is resolved. Multiply it by the number of pay periods until you expect to have a resolution in place. That total is the real cost of waiting, and it is usually the number that makes the decision for people.
Then use it. A levy is released by resolving the account, not by appealing the arithmetic, and the figure tells you which resolution is realistic. If the levy leaves you below your necessary living expenses, that is a specific statutory ground for release, and it is argued with documented numbers.
Getting the Number Down
There is no negotiating the table. There is only changing the situation the table applies to.
Return the Statement of Dependents within the three days, accurately. Get every required return filed, because nothing else is available until they are. Then submit Form 9465 or use the Online Payment Agreement for an installment agreement, request currently not collectible status if paying anything is genuinely impossible, or file Form 12153 if the final notice is still inside its 30 days.
We are CPAs in Uniondale and this is our daily work. Dealing with tax debt brings up fear, embarrassment and anger, and we totally understand.
Our wage garnishment page covers what we actually do on these.
Annamaria’s background is here if you want to know who reads your file.
And our contact page is the fastest way to get the levy in front of someone while the exempt amount is still costing you every week.
FAQ
How much will the IRS garnish your wages?
Everything above your exempt amount. The IRS does not take a percentage. It leaves you a figure set by Publication 1494 according to your filing status, pay period and dependents, and levies the rest. For 2026 a single filer paid weekly with no dependents keeps $309.62, so a $1,200 weekly paycheck would see roughly $890 go to the IRS.
How much will the IRS garnish my wages calculator?
You do not need a calculator, you need the table. Find your filing status and pay period in Publication 1494, read across to your number of dependents, and that is your exempt amount. Add the age or blindness amount from the second table if it applies. Whatever your take-home exceeds that figure is what the levy takes. The one thing that changes the answer is the Statement of Dependents and Filing Status, which you must return to your employer within three days.
How does IRS wage garnishment work?
The IRS assesses a balance, sends a notice and demand for payment, then a final notice giving you 30 days to request a Collection Due Process hearing. If that passes without a resolution, it serves Form 668-W on your employer. Your employer pays you the exempt amount and sends the rest to the IRS every pay period, continuously, until you make other arrangements, the balance is paid, or the levy is released. No court and no judgment are involved at any stage.