Payroll Tax

This section explains payroll tax language: the wage bases payroll taxes use, the amounts withheld from employee pay, and the separate tax obligations the employer still owes.

Use it when the main question is what tax payroll is calculating, what wages it is calculating it on, and whether the amount belongs to the employee side or the employer side of payroll.

Current pages:

• Payroll Tax explains the broader payroll-tax category that includes both employee-side and employer-side obligations.
• Withholding explains tax amounts held back from employee pay.
• Employee Withholding explains payroll amounts taken from the employee side of the paycheck.
• Wage Base explains the tax-specific wage amount payroll uses as the basis for a payroll tax calculation.
• Taxable Wages explains the wage base payroll uses for a specific tax calculation.
• Employer Payroll Tax explains the employer-side payroll tax cost that exists beyond employee withholding.

In this section

• Employee Withholding
  What employee withholding means, how it fits into payroll tax, and how it differs from employer payroll tax.
• Employer Payroll Tax
  What employer payroll tax means, how it differs from employee withholding, and where it appears in payroll workflow.
• Payroll Tax
  What payroll tax means, how it works in payroll, and why it includes both employee-side and employer-side obligations.
• Taxable Wages
  What taxable wages mean in payroll, how payroll calculates them, and why they can differ from gross pay.
• Wage Base
  What a wage base means in payroll tax calculations and why payroll must know which wages count for a specific tax.
• Withholding
  What withholding means in payroll, how payroll calculates it, and how it differs from deductions and employer payroll taxes.