This course focuses on the proper processing of child support orders in the payroll department. We start with the basics of prioritizing all types of garnishments to demonstrate the priority for child support in most cases. From this point we will discuss the laws and the regulations governing child support including the major federal laws and how the states have adopted or adapted these laws.

Working with these basics we will discuss and review the Income Withholding Order (IWO) and how to determine if the order is “regular on its face” and must be processed or if it can be rejected. We will then work through the steps to processing an IWO in the payroll department. But the proper processing of IWOs involves numerous steps including determining legal requirements and priorities so at this point we will also discuss communication with both the employee and the issuing party.

This discussion will also include creating templates to assist with this communication. To ensure proper withholding and paying out of child support we will discuss the best practices for reconciling and paying child support. From this point we will review the National Medical Support Notice. This notice may or may not come with an IWO and is included in processing child support to determine withholding limits. Its processing must be done correctly by employers to ensure compliance.

Using the information learned so far, we now work through examples on how to determine the actual withholding from wages for child support. This includes doing examples for employees with one, two and three child support orders in effect, including arrearages. Child support orders are not necessarily processed in a vacuum, and the employee may have other garnishments in effect. In this section of the course we cover how to process child support orders with other types of garnishments focusing on bankruptcies and creditor garnishments. Special situations occur when processing child support. This section concentrates on how to process what are known as lump sums and how to handle terminating as well as rehired employees.

We will conclude our course with a discussion of how to go paperless with processing child support by a discussion of the e-IWO program and paying child support by Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).