Technically there are still exemptions; but for the tax years 2018 through 2025 the amount of the deduction for those exemptions is zero. Under IRC § 6334(d)(1) & (2) the exempt amount allowed the taxpayer when weekly wages were levied was determined prior to the new tax law by taking the total of the amounts allowed the taxpayer for personal exemptions plus the amount allowed for the standard deduction and dividing that total by 52.
Of course, as I noted the exemption amount is now zero, but the standard deduction is significantly bigger to offset that. So the taxpayer would still have gotten some of his wages exempt from the levy even after passage of the tax law had Congress not touched the exempt amount. But Congress did fiddle with that too. It added a new paragraph (d) which states that for any year where the exemption amount is zero the taxpayers weekly exempt amount from wages is now the total of $4,150 x the number of dependents + the standard deduction and then that total is divided by 52. (And for future years that $4,150 is indexed for inflation.) Note the subtle difference here: the Congress substituted the word dependents instead of exemptions. This means that the taxpayer and his spouse are not counted in determining the amount exempt from the levy as they were prior to the change in the law. That is because of the much larger standard deduction. What this means is that single taxpayers and those with small families would see more wages exempt now than before, but those with large families might see less exempt.
You did not include the standard deduction in your example. The personal exemption in 2017 was $4,050 and the standard deduction for married filing jointly was $12,700. So if we had a married taxpayer who files jointly and they have two kids who qualify as their dependents. That gives them 4 exemptions. So had the levy been served in 2017 the weekly exempt amount would be (4 x $4,050 + 12,700)/52 = $555.77.
Under the formula in effect for 2018, they would have two dependents and are married filing jointly, so the weekly exempt amount for a levy served in 2018 would be: (2 x $4,150 + $24,000)/52 = $621.15. Thus, the new law for this family would mean that they would have $65.38 more exempt from levy each week.
Note that the exempt amounts are determined in the year the levy is served and do not get adjusted if the levy continues into following years.
That’s not correct. Under IRC § 6334(a)(11) no amount of SSI income is subject to levy at all. Social Security retirement and disability benefits subject to the same exempt amount as for wages. IRC § 6334(a)(9). Note that if the taxpayer has income from multiple sources he is entitled to no more than the exempt amount discussed above; that is, if he is getting the full exemption on his wages, for example, then the IRS can take ALL of the Social Security retirement benefits. The problem with Social Security levies is this: it requires a revenue officer to prepare, get approved, and serve a new levy on SSA each month, and then SSA then has to manually adjust the SSA payment. It is a pain in the butt for both agencies. As a result, Congress passed an act in 2002 that provides for a continuing offset of Social Security for federal taxes of 15% of the benefit amount. As this is done all through computers, it is very easy for both agencies to do. As a result, the IRS now will use that offset program when it wishes to attach Social Security except in more extraordinary circumstances in which a revenue officer determines the levy of more than 15% is necessary.
Federal law generally limits garnishment of wages for non-government debts to 25% of net wages. That’s where the 25% figure PayrollHRGuy mentioned comes from.