This is the method of the Treasury to garnish your salary if you have debts

The main task of the Treasury is collection, collecting the taxes that citizens have to pay to comply with their tax obligations. In the event that the citizen disobeys and thus fails to comply with the mandate that he has with the public coffers, he can find himself in serious trouble and suffer seizures of his income, such as salaries.

The law empowers the Treasury to garnish wages and salaries when it has to settle a debt that the citizen has pending with the agency. You cannot do it freely or garnish the entire salary: it must be done in accordance with the law, which, although it allows the Tax Agency to proceed with that garnishment, at the same time tries to guarantee some protection to the citizen who, even if he accumulates debts, must have a economic coverage on a day-to-day basis.

That is why the Treasury You will never be able to seize amounts below the Minimum Interprofessional Wage, currently 1,000 euros but it will be 1,080 euros per month with retroactivity to January 1. This is guaranteed by the Civil Procedure Law (which can be consulted in this link of the Official State Gazette) in its article 607.

Although the SMI cannot be seized, this does not mean that the Treasury can keep the rest of the money that a citizen receives monthly as salary. The Law contemplates income brackets of which the Treasury can only seize different percentages. The higher the income, yes, the higher the wage garnishments:

-For amounts between the SMI and twice the SMI, embargoes of the 30%.

-For amounts between double and triple the SMI, embargoes of the fifty%.

-For amounts between three and four times the SMI, embargoes of the 60%.

-For amounts between four and five times the SMI, embargoes of the 75%.

-For amounts from five times the SMI, embargoes of the 90%.

In order to know what is the figure to which to apply the percentages, the Law makes it clear that all wages or salaries will be added, so in the case of a person with several jobs, all remunerations would be added. This has the objective of avoiding the possibility that a worker received less than the SMI in different jobs and that, even if he received more than that minimum salary in total, being divided, he would not be subject to embargo.

In addition, there are aspects that must be taken into account: if the debtor has family responsibilities, he may have discounts on seizures of between 10 and 15%, except in tranches greater than five times the SMI, which will not have a discount despite this. .

This is how the Treasury seizes a salary

It is important to know how the Treasury proceeds with the embargo, since this distinction between income brackets can cause confusion. Thus, a person who receives 3,500 euros per month does not have a seizure of 60% of his salary, but rather he will suffer embargoes for certain percentages that will only affect the corresponding tranche.

It is a similar operation to that of the IRPF sections in the Income: the first 1,000 euros (in a few days it will be 1,080) are exempt from seizure, of the following 1,000 euros 30% will be seized, of the following 1,000 euros 50 will be seized. % and of the remaining 500 euros, 60% will be seized.

In this way, a taxpayer with debts who collects 3,500 euros per month will suffer an embargo of 1,100 euros: 300 euros of the tranche between the SMI and double the SMI, 500 euros of the tranche between double and triple the SMI and 300 euros of the tranche between three and four times the SMI. In short, 31.4% of the monthly salary will be seized.

The Treasury embargo simulator

As it is an important matter and one that may give rise to doubts, the Tax Agency has a simulator on its website in which a person can consult the amounts that can be attached from their salary. You only need a stable internet connection and can be accessed through this link.

Its operation is simple, since the interested party will only have to enter the data requested by the system:

-The amount of the debt.

-The type of salary (if it is monthly or daily).

-If the amount of salary includes prorated payments.

-The monthly or daily liquid amount.

By entering all these variables, the system will calculate both the amount that will be seized from the citizen and the number of months that that amount will be seized. And, in addition, it makes the calculation in two ways: assuming that the net amount of the salary is with or without prorated payments.