Florida is one of the most protective states in the country for wage earners. If you are the head of a family and a credit card company or a medical provider gets a judgment against you, Florida law can stop it from garnishing your paycheck at all, depending on what you earn.
Then the IRS sends your employer a Notice of Levy on Wages, Salary, and Other Income, Form 668-W. Your paycheck shrinks to a sliver. You call HR and tell them about the Florida head-of-family exemption. HR tells you, correctly, that it does not apply.
Let’s go through why, and what actually protects you.
What Florida’s statute says
Fla. Stat. 222.11 governs wage garnishment by creditors in Florida. The key definitions:
- Earnings include compensation for personal services, whether called wages, salary, commission or bonus.
- Disposable earnings are what remains after deductions required by law, like income tax and Social Security withholding.
- Head of family includes any natural person who provides more than one-half of the support for a child or other dependent.
The protection is in subsection (2). Under 222.11(2)(a), all of the disposable earnings of a head of family whose disposable earnings are $750 a week or less are exempt from attachment or garnishment. Under 222.11(2)(b), disposable earnings above $750 a week cannot be garnished unless the person agreed otherwise in writing, through a separate waiver document in at least 14-point type in the exact form the statute prescribes. People who are not heads of family get the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act limit under 15 U.S.C. 1673.
Subsection (3) extends the protection to exempt wages deposited in a bank account for six months, if the funds can be traced. That is a strong set of rules. Against the IRS, none of it applies.
Why the IRS is different
The IRS does not garnish under Florida law. It levies under federal law, specifically IRC 6331. And the exemptions that apply to an IRS levy are only the ones Congress wrote.
IRC 6334(c) says that notwithstanding any other law of the United States, no property or rights to property are exempt from levy other than the property specifically made exempt by IRC 6334(a). The regulation goes further. Treas. Reg. 301.6334-1(c) states that no provision of a state law may exempt property or rights to property from levy for the collection of any federal tax, and that property exempt from execution under state personal or homestead exemption laws is nevertheless subject to levy by the United States.
Florida’s head-of-family exemption is a state exemption law. It has no effect on an IRS levy.
What federal law protects instead
The federal wage exemption is in IRC 6334(a)(9), with the amount set by IRC 6334(d). The structure works like this:
- The exempt amount is based on your standard deduction for your filing status, plus an amount for each dependent you are entitled to claim, converted to a weekly figure. Because the personal exemption deduction is zero under current law, IRC 6334(d)(4) uses a fixed per-dependent amount, adjusted annually for inflation.
- If you do not return the statement of exemptions and filing status that comes with the levy, the employer must compute the exempt amount as if you were married filing separately with no dependents. That is the smallest possible exemption.
- Your employer uses the tables in IRS Publication 1494, Tables for Figuring Amount Exempt From Levy on Wages, Salary, and Other Income, for the year of the levy, matched to your pay period.
- Everything above the exempt amount, after limited deductions, goes to the IRS every pay period until the levy is released.
One more federal exemption matters for some families. IRC 6334(a)(8) exempts so much of your wages as is necessary to comply with a court judgment for support of minor children entered before the levy. If you pay court-ordered child support, make sure your employer and the IRS know.
Comparing the two systems
| Question | Florida judgment creditor | IRS levy |
|---|---|---|
| Needs a court judgment first? | Yes | No; administrative after notice |
| Head-of-family protection? | Yes, Fla. Stat. 222.11 | No; IRC 6334(c) |
| How much is protected? | All disposable earnings up to $750 a week, and more unless waived in writing | Exempt amount from Publication 1494 based on standard deduction and dependents |
| Wages in the bank? | Traceable exempt wages protected for 6 months | No equivalent; bank levy rules apply |
| Continues until? | Judgment paid or writ dissolved | Tax paid, levy released or collection period ends |
The full side-by-side of the procedures is in Florida garnishment versus IRS levy.
Your wages after they hit the bank
Florida protects exempt wages even after they are deposited. Under Fla. Stat. 222.11(3), a head of family’s exempt earnings credited to a financial institution remain exempt from attachment or garnishment for six months after the bank receives them, if they can be traced and properly identified as earnings. Commingling does not by itself defeat tracing.
There is no federal equivalent in an IRS case. Once your paycheck lands in your account, it is money in a bank account. An IRS levy on the bank under Form 668-A reaches the balance on the day the bank is served, subject to the 21-day hold in IRC 6332(c). The fact that the money came from wages that Florida would have protected does not matter.
That creates a double hit some Tampa families experience: a wage levy takes part of each paycheck at the employer, and a bank levy takes what remains in the account. If both are in place, the hardship argument under IRC 6343 becomes very strong, but only if you make it with documents. My guide on IRS bank levies in Tampa covers the 21-day window.
A continuing levy, not a one-time hit
A bank levy takes what is in the account on the day it is served. A wage levy is different. Under IRC 6331(e), a levy on salary or wages is continuous from the date it is first made until it is released. Every paycheck is affected until something changes. That is why a wage levy creates hardship so quickly for Tampa families living paycheck to paycheck. My guide on IRS wage levies in Hillsborough County covers the process.
What actually gets a wage levy released
Since Florida’s exemption does not help, these are the federal tools that do:
- Economic hardship. IRC 6343(a)(1)(D) requires the IRS to release a levy if it determines the levy is creating an economic hardship due to the financial condition of the taxpayer. The implementing regulation ties hardship to the inability to pay reasonable basic living expenses. You prove it with a financial statement and documents.
- An installment agreement. IRC 6343(a)(1)(C) provides for release when the taxpayer has entered into an installment agreement, unless the agreement provides otherwise.
- Currently not collectible status. If your allowable expenses consume your income, the IRS may stop collection. See currently not collectible status in Hillsborough County.
- Full payment or an expired collection statute. Both require release under IRC 6343(a)(1)(A) and (B).
The IRS will measure your living expenses against its Collection Financial Standards, including the county housing figure. For Tampa households, see the Hillsborough County housing standards.
Do not ignore the levy forms
When your employer receives Form 668-W, you should receive parts of it with a statement of exemptions and filing status to complete. Fill it out and return it promptly. If you do not, IRC 6334(d) has the employer compute your exemption as if you were married filing separately with no dependents. For a Tampa parent with three children, that mistake alone can cost hundreds of dollars a paycheck.
GetIRSHelp.com has more on stopping IRS wage garnishment.
Florida protects heads of family from their creditors. The IRS is not their creditor in the Florida sense. It is the United States, and it brought its own rules.