Garnishment Frequently Asked Questions

A third-party garnishment is a court order that tells the State to withhold part of a person’s or business’s income tax refund or earnings to pay a debt.

How It Works

• A creditor (called the Plaintiff) asks the court to approve the garnishment.
• If the court approves it, the State is required to send the withheld funds to the creditor.
• Before this happens, the court will send you a notice explaining the garnishment.

What You Should Know

• The State cannot withhold your refund without a court order.
• You should receive a court notice before any money is taken.

For more information visit the If Your Refund is Held/Offset to Pay a Debt webpage.

To remove a garnishment, the court must sign a Garnishment Release and send it to the State.

How to Submit a Garnishment Release

Instructions for Submitting a Garnishment Release

If the State of Michigan receives a valid court order for a third-party garnishment, your income tax refund may be withheld (also called “offset”) and sent to the creditor to pay your debt.

Before this happens, you should receive a notice from the court or the creditor explaining the garnishment. The Michigan Department of Treasury is required to notify you before withholding your refund.

For more information visit the If Your Refund is Held/Offset to Pay a Debt webpage.

Contact the court or the plaintiff’s attorney directly to discuss your garnishment.

If you need help, you can:

• Visit the Third-Party Garnishment Department Contact Us page, or
• Call 517-636-5265 and follow the prompts for garnishments.

If only one person on a joint tax return owes a debt—such as unpaid taxes or a third-party garnishment—the Michigan Department of Treasury may still withhold the full refund. However, the non-obligated spouse may be eligible to receive their share of the refund through the Residual Refund process.

How it works:

• The Department will mail you a personalized Income Allocation for Non-Obligated Spouse Form (Form 743).
• This form includes information from your tax return and helps determine how much of the refund belongs to each spouse.
• To claim your portion, you must complete and return the form within 30 days of the date on the letter that comes with it.
• If the form is not returned on time or is incomplete, the entire refund may be applied to the debt.

For more information, visit the Non-Obligated Spouse Information webpage.

If more than one garnishment is received, the one with the earliest service date is paid first. Any intercepted payments will go toward that debt.

Once that debt is paid in full, any remaining payments will be applied to the next garnishment, based on the order of service dates.

The service date is the date the Michigan Department of Treasury receives the garnishment fee payment.

To get an earlier service date, filers should send the payment just before or at the same time they submit the garnishment.