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What is the difference between payroll tax, and federal tax?

Obama keeps saying some people work and pay no federal tax. He says they pay payroll tax??? We have state tax, social security tax, medicare tax, federal tax, disability tax. So what is payroll tax???

Public Comments

1. payroll tax refers to social security and medicare tax since this is not taken out of income from investments and so forth. Income tax, or our federal and state taxes, while taken out of our paychecks are also taken out of any other source of income or are required to be paid while, as mentioned before, social security and medicare is not.
2. Obama is confused on the whole tax thing. Payroll tax is what an employer sends to the federal government on the employees behalf.(941 Tax) In other words when you get your pay stub and it says FED -$200. The employer sent $200 to the US Treasury on your behalf.
3. I'll try. Payroll tax is a tax paid in part by the employer for unemployment insurance, compensation insurance and shared FICA (social security and medicare) with the employee. The majority of this tax is paid by the employer.
4. I'm by far not an expert, but payroll taxes are paid by employers. Part of your earnings are reduced by Social Security and Medicare taxes. As employees we only pay half of what is owed to the government. The other half is paid by the employer. That is the payroll tax. This is totally separate from the federal and/or state income tax or any other type of tax.
5. Payroll tax is the deductions that come out of each paycheck. Those include Social Security, Medicare, federal withholding, and state withholding. It may also include things like state disability. The amount of your withholdings is determined by how much you make in a pay period and may or may not have any relation to what your actual tax liability is. For example, I manage a movie theatre which is a very seasonal business. During the summer months my employees get more hours per pay period which means they have more taken out in federal and state withholding. But during the fall and spring they work very few hours and most won't have anything withheld for state or federal. But at the end of the year when they file a tax return, most of them will not have made enough money to have any tax liability and will get a 100% refund of any state or federal withholdings. Hopefully this makes a little more sense.
6. Good question, not only does Obama not understand the difference, not many other people do either. If they knew how these taxes are mal-administered, there would be a march on Washington..
7. Every employer is to pay a payroll tax, these are deductions we send to the federal government to meet the 941 agreement. Based on the Amount of money the employee is paid and using the deductions he or she has set up we make the appropriate payments to the FED. We send ours every week. on those paid weekly. For those that are sub-contractors they are on 10-98's Obama has his head so high above his shoulders, and is so caught up in himself. He will never hear or see that bus that hits him.
8. shows he has not a clue about the middle class working family. Its the Federal Withholding Tax on the pay stub that most working class folks bring home. The very fact that all along they have made a difference in their speech about taxes and payroll taxes says they don't understand how it works. Lord help us if he wins. I've paid payroll withholding tax all my working days, and at the end of the year, come April 15th when I file my 1040 Tax Return, sometimes I owe even more than was withheld from my paycheck and guess what? I don't come close to making $250,000, or $200,000 or $150,000 or $100,000 or, well, you get the picture. John McCain said Obama's tax plan would tax those making as little as $42,000, well, that's closer to my income than $100,000. I'd love to know how Obama figures 95% of us don't pay income tax. I pay income tax on my income, all my friends and family pay taxes and none of us are "rich". How about you? He could not be so uneducated as to believe that the dollar withheld from a paycheck for income tax is any different than the dollar paid with estimated tax or a tax return for income tax; neither dollar stays with the worker's family, it goes to the government. I believe Obama is intentionally misleading people.