The IRS levy reaches further than any private creditor's garnishment, but it is not unlimited. The statute carves out categories the IRS cannot touch and formulas it must honor, and knowing the boundaries is how you protect what is protectable - and spot a levy that took more than the law allows.
The Wage Levy Formula
A wage levy does not take a percentage; it leaves you an exempt amount and takes everything else. The exempt amount comes from a published table: roughly your standard deduction plus an allowance per dependent, divided across your pay periods. Filing status and dependents claimed on the levy response form drive the figure, which means completing your employer's levy paperwork accurately and quickly is worth real money every single payday - leave it blank and the IRS computes your exemption at the worst default.
Income the Levy Cannot Reach
By statute, certain payments are exempt outright: unemployment benefits, workers' compensation, certain public assistance, court-ordered child support you receive, certain annuity and pension payments including military disability benefits, and a basic allowance of wearing apparel, household goods, and tools of the trade up to indexed amounts. A levy that grabbed exempt income is releasable on that ground alone.
Two cautions on the other side of the ledger. Social Security is not exempt - the IRS takes 15 percent through the federal payment levy program, a fact that surprises retirees constantly. And retirement accounts can be levied, though the IRS requires elevated approval and tends to reserve it for egregious cases; the practical protection there is behavioral, not statutory.
Exemption Is the Floor, Not the Strategy
The exemptions keep you alive during a levy; they do not end one. The end comes from release grounds - economic hardship, entering an agreement, hardship status, procedural defect - and from resolving the underlying debt so the levy never returns. If the IRS is taking from your check or your account right now, the first questions are whether the amounts are even lawful and which release ground your facts support. Both are answerable in one call.