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Yep. It's any tax refund setup to direct deposit from the IRS to your bank account. It doesn't matter if you have employer direct deposit. One other problem is that many people in the US are unbanked so they get prepaid debit cards or a check.


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Yes, but your employer pays taxes too. It's supposed to add up to the same amount (although big businesses often manage to game the tax system in one way or another).

My employer does this.

The answer is yes. It is after-tax dollars. But the employee can get it back on their tax-return at the end of the year.


The IRS only gets your employer's contribution to taxable revenue. They don't have a way of knowing what you do with that income, which may be taxable. That's what you're supposed to do.

I can't speak for my employer but the IRS certainly views gift cards and similar cash equivalent payments to be taxable income.

Employers pay an additional tax on payroll. The withholdings they send to IRS is not considered a tax.

Don't they, technically? Since the income tax is withheld from your paycheck before you get it?

Sort of at the Federal level (though these tend to colloquially be understood/communicated as "income taxes" despite being de jure FICA/payroll).

This _isn't_ true at the state level, where payroll taxes may be paid by an employer and not the employee.

In the end it is a wash.


Not if you're the employer, which, if you're the taxpayer, you are.

You file quarterly tax returns and pay the IRS. If you have a full-time job in the US your employer normally deducts and pays those taxes as part of payroll processing.

>Do you report and pay federal taxes and state taxes separately?

Yes. They are separate sets of forms that you pay (or get refunded) independently. They're basically unrelated exxcept to the degree that deductions/refunds may come into play.

The employer is making various deductions and payments, e.g. into unemployment, based on the state you live in. So your employer really does need to know your state of residence.


Yes, and besides, there's a flat income tax called 'payroll tax' that everyone pays both directly and indirectly through employment taxes paid by employers. Americans don't call that 'income tax' for some reason.

Many people refer to payroll taxes as payroll taxes, yes.

I meant post tax earnings, of course.

It is, yes. If you keep the same headcount and use at least 60% of it for payroll (not exactly clear how you prove that since money is fungible), it is essentially a stimulus check

Correct. And if the IRS calls it income then, odds are, your current employer would consider it the same

That's basically how it works in Canada. You can even request that the tax relief is applied to each pay check rather than waiting for the tax refund.

Also don't forget the $43,500 post-tax 401k contribution that you can backdoor into to a Roth.

if your employer supports post-tax contributions


Money is transferred from taxed earners to nontaxed people (unemployed, entrepreneur, retired, etc)

> Your employer pays the tax on your behalf directly from your salary and updates the tax office as to how much you make. In turn, the tax office tells your employer how much tax to pay from your salary, without any input required from yourself.

Same thing happens in the US. When most people file their taxes here, they get money back because they already overpaid.

For example I spent a few thousand trying to launch a business this year, and that is all tax deductible. So I'll file that with my tax form that my employer sends me (with the salary info prefilled), and I'll end up getting some money back because my taxable income is lower than what the gov't expected.


A question I'll tack on...for payroll do you guys automatically pay and file taxes for unemployment, medicare etc?
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