Does the state tax authority and/or IRS give out employement info?

[softwareguy]

I had a default judgement against me some time ago. Much to my surprise, they served my then current employer with a wage garnishment order.

Now, given the fact that I have been EXTREMELY careful not to let anyone know where I worked at the time, AND I had never applied for credit using this employer's name AND this employer's name does not and has never appeared on my credit report AND I do not post to Facebook or anywhere else online, I can only think of three possible ways they found out where I worked:

1) The payroll company (a very large one) that processed our paychecks for this company

2) The California Franchise Tax Board (responsible for income tax)

3) The IRS

There is NO other way they would have go this information. Is it possible any of the above entities would provide this information upon request? Wouldn't that be considered confidential and illegal for any of them to provide this information without authorization from me? As to the payroll company, I'm thinking this may be a revenue stream for them. Since they process a good majority of payroll in the United States, I'm thinking a skip tracer could issue them a query on an SSN and if there is a match, provide them the employer name for a cost. I would hope there would be laws against this!

Any information on this would be greatly appreciated.

Edited March 21, 2012 by softwareguy

[Flyingifr]

New Hire information must be provided by the employer to State agencies that administer Child Support and Alimony collection efforts. If the debt is for that then the information sharing was done by law. If the debt is for an obligation to or guaranteed by the State or Federal Government... well, State Government agencies to talk to each other and all States except Nevada have Information Sharing agreements with the Feds, so that is how the creditor found out about you if the debt was a Federal or State guaranteed debt.

If neither of these is the case then we simply have a case of one lucky skip tracer. Go to the "other board" and read "Frustrating the Skip Tracer" to understand how it may have happened.

[softwareguy]

New Hire information must be provided by the employer to State agencies that administer Child Support and Alimony collection efforts. If the debt is for that then the information sharing was done by law. If the debt is for an obligation to or guaranteed by the State or Federal Government... well, State Government agencies to talk to each other and all States except Nevada have Information Sharing agreements with the Feds, so that is how the creditor found out about you if the debt was a Federal or State guaranteed debt.

If neither of these is the case then we simply have a case of one lucky skip tracer. Go to the "other board" and read "Frustrating the Skip Tracer" to understand how it may have happened.

Credit card debt