I have written in great detail about the treatment of social security income in a bankruptcy case.  What happens outside of bankruptcy?  The answer is obvious:  It depends.

Well, that was a worthless answer, wasn’t it?  Not so fast.  What if I throw in some statutory authority?  And if you act right now, operators are standing by to give you a special deal on some case law!

It turns out that my apparently flippant answer, “It depends,” really is correct.  Let’s see why.

I.  What The Right Hand Giveth

The federal statute dealing with social security is the Social security Act (no big surprise there), which is Chapter 7 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code.   Among its many provisions is what appears to be a blanket protection of social security benefits from the depredations of all creditors except the IRS (with emphasis added):
Continue Reading Can A Creditor Garnish My Social Security Check?