Understanding Deductions for Wage Attachments Setup

Before you can enter wage attachment information for employees, you must set up a deduction for each type of wage attachment. Setting up a deduction for a wage attachment is similar to setting up any other kind of deduction. Therefore, only the unique considerations for each type of wage attachment deduction are discussed here.

Wage attachment payments are deducted from an employee's disposable wage (disposable earnings). An employee's disposable wage is the amount that remains after all payments that are required by law have been deducted from the employee's gross wages.

These required payments include:

• Federal income tax.

• Social Security tax.

• Medicare tax.

• State income tax.

• State unemployment insurance.

• State disability insurance.

• State employee retirement systems.

• Local and county taxes.

• Any other applicable state requirements.

Special considerations for a wage attachment deduction include:

Consideration	Explanation
Effect on disposable wage	For a wage attachment that is required by law, you should indicate that the attachment is a mandatory deduction when you specify its effect on disposable wage.
Calculation once per pay period	Typically, you set up the system to calculate a wage attachment deduction only once per pay period. Therefore, if an employee receives a payment (such as a bonus) in addition to a regular payment, the wage attachment payment is deducted only from the regular payment.
Accounts Payable integration	If the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Payroll system is integrated with the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Accounts Payable system, you can set up a wage attachment DBA to generate vouchers.
Declining balances	When you set up a wage attachment deduction, set the Declining Balance field to N (No). The system uses the method of calculation to calculate the declining balance.
Amount due	Because wage attachment balances typically vary by employee, you should not enter an amount due for a wage attachment DBA. Instead, you enter the amount due when you assign wage attachments to individual employees.
Negative pay situations	You can set up loan deductions to adjust or be placed in arrears in a negative-pay situation. When an employee does not earn enough in a pay period to pay the deduction, the system can place the deduction in arrears.

You set up a garnishment deduction to deduct court-ordered payments resulting from nonpayment of personal debts or overdue child support. The debts on which these imposed payments are based are already past due.

In some cases, you might need to associate fees with a wage attachment. For example, your organization might charge fees for administering garnishments.

You set up a tax levy deduction to deduct court-ordered payments for back taxes that the employee owes.

You set up a wage assignment deduction to deduct ongoing debts, including child support and maintenance, from an employee's earnings.