Making a joint bank account – will the government take our funds?

Question by blehh: Making a joint bank account – will the government take our funds?
My bf and I want to open a joint bank account. The main reason we want to do this is because my bf needs an account. He had a bank account in the past, but the government took his funds from his account because he owes student loans. He is planning to go back to school and pay off the loans eventually, but hasn’t been able to do it yet because he has just started a new job. He needs a bank account to have his paycheck deposited in, for the past couple months he has been doing this through his friend’s bank account. I want to help him out though and was going to open a bank account in my name so that he could transfer money and stuff easier.. but if my name was on it, I wanted a card too for access to it. The bank said the only way we could get two cards for the account was if his name was on it too.. so if I put his name on the account, will the government attack it and take the funds from it again, even though it is half my bank account too? And please don’t say “pay off the the student loans”, he will take care of them eventually but hasn’t had the money yet to start making payments.

Best answer:

Answer by the tax lady
A joint bank account means that either one of you can write checks against the account.

As soon as the lender knows the account exists, they can levy it and take all the money–after all, logically they are just writing the check for your boyfriend.

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Tags: Bank Card, Government, Joint Bank Account, Levy, Student Loan, Student Loans