How we calculate a deduction from your income

If you do not pay what you owe in time, we can order your employer, NAV, or others, to deduct a monthly amount from your income. The deduction is used for payment towards your unpaid claims.

Attachment of earnings means that parts of your salary, income from self-employment, benefits from NAV, or other income, will not be paid to you but will be transferred to the Tax Administration as payment towards the amount you owe. The deduction can be a fixed percentage of your salary or a fixed amount per month.

The deduction takes place without your consent, but we notify you before any deductions in your income.

How we calculate the amount

income
- withholding tax
- cost of living expenses
- housing expenses/mortgages
- other expenses that we must consider, such as necessary medicines, childcare expenses, and others
- deductions with higher priority
= monthly deduction in the salary or benefit to cover unpaid claims

The household must have sufficient funds to cover their necessary cost of living expenses. The rates for cost-of-living expenses are calculated to cover expenses for food, drink, clothing, shoes, electricity, heating, health, hygiene, phone, newspapers, public transportation, groceries, and furniture.

Expenses for consumer loans and student loans are not considered necessary expenses, and we’ll not normally consider these in the evaluation.

Unless you’ve submitted information to us before the deduction starts, we use standard rates for expenses such as rent.

Priority of different types of deduction

There is a legally defined order of priority for different claims if the amount is not enough to cover all the claims. The order of priority is as follows:

claims relating to legally determined maintenance payments
compensation claims following a criminal act
the State’s recourse claims according to section 11 of the Compensation for Violent Crime Act
fines
tax claims or public duties
other claims

If your employer has gone bankrupt

If you have an attachment of earnings and your employer went bankrupt without transferring the money to us, you must send us a copy of your payslips showing that the deductions were made. We’ll then evaluate whether to reduce the claim against you according to what your employer should have paid to us.

Consequences for your cohabiting partner or spouse

You’re personally responsible for your own debts. We do not issue any attachment of earnings against the salary or benefit of your partner or spouse, only against the salary or benefit that you receive yourself.

We’ll nevertheless calculate the deduction based on your household’s combined income and expenses. Your cohabiting partner or spouse can be affected by the deduction because the household’s combined income is reduced during the deduction period.