when fica taxes are taken out of your payroll check are they the same thing as federal taxes?

Question

my husband paycheck stub has fica taxes taken out but there is no federal taxes being taken out. I want to know if fica taxes and federal taxes are the same because his employer needs to start taking them out if they aren't the same

Answer 1

fica taxes are social security taxes. if there are no listings for federal income tax withheld, you will be in for a nasty surprize next April when your Income taxes are due and you not only owe the whole magilla at one time but also a penelty fee for being under withheld during the year. you might want to learn something about taxes and finances in general. If you don't know what FICA means you can use a lot of education before you hurt yourself.!!

Answer 2

The short answer is that FICA taxes are not the same as Federal Income Tax. The longer answer follows:

FICA taxes are for Social Security and Medicare. Assuming your husband is a regular W-2 employee (not an independent contractor), he should be paying 7.65% of his earnings toward FICA taxes. He'll pay the 7.65% up to $97,500 in earnings. After that he'll only pay the Medicare portion of 1.45%.

Federal Income taxes are a separate issue. Your husband's employer should withhold these taxes based on an estimate of the Federal Income tax he'll ultimately owe at the end of the year. Your husband at some time probably filled out an IRS Form W-4 telling the employer how many exemptions he'll claim on his Federal Tax return. The employer then references a table saying if your husband earns XX dollars and is paid twice a month (or every 2 weeks, or whatever) then the employer should withhold XX dollars from the paycheck.

If the employer isn't withholding Federal Taxes from the paycheck, I would guess one of two things might be happening (1) The employer is treating your husband as an independent contractor; or (2) Your husband doesn't make enough money to pay Federal Income Taxes.

If #1 is happening, you may not like the result. To make a long story short, your husband will owe an additional 7.65% in "Self-Employment" taxes and should probably be making quarterly payments for his Federal Tax obligations.

If #2 is happening, then it's an unfortunate thing from an earnings outlook, but at least he won't be paying taxes and all is well in the world.

I'll watch this question for the next day or so. If you have more questions, please feel free to ask. I won't likely be back in front of my computer until tomorrow evening, however.

I'm no IRS representative, but I have stayed in a Holiday Inn Express within the last week! :-)

Hope this helps...

Answer 3

Nope, FICA is for social security, not federal income taxes. He should check what his W-4 says if nothing is being taken out for federal income taxes, and file a new one.