Payroll Taxes

UNLESS YOU ARE self-employed, it’s easy to forget about the Social Security and Medicare payroll tax. Your employer takes the payroll tax from your paycheck before it does almost anything else, including deduct those 401(k) contributions.

Those 401(k) contributions may reduce your income for purposes of calculating income taxes, but they don’t shrink the income that’s subject to the payroll tax. Moreover, unless you have self-employment income, you won’t even be reminded that you’re paying the payroll tax when you fill out your federal tax return.

Yet, for many workers, the payroll tax takes a bigger bite out of their income than the federal income tax—and this assumes their employer pays half the payroll tax. Surprised? There may be seven federal income tax brackets ranging from 10% to 37%. But for many families, only the 10% and 12% brackets come into play, plus they can take advantage of deductions and credits.

That means their marginal tax rate is fairly low, and their average tax rate is even lower. By contrast, the payroll tax for most folks is a flat 15.3%, with 7.65% paid by employees and 7.65% by employers. That 7.65% is further divided, so that 6.2% goes to Social Security and 1.45% to Medicare.

Employees get some relief from the payroll tax at higher income levels. At these higher levels, they no longer have to pay any more Social Security tax, though they have to pay the 1.45% Medicare tax on every dollar of income they earn. If their total income—including investment income—is high enough, however, they may get hit with a nasty surprise: the Medicare surtax.

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