Question

What does it mean when federal tax amount on w2 form is lower then social security amount?

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
June 1, 2019
1 reply
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I have gotten my w2 form back from my employer and found the federal income tax withheld to be alot lower then i expected, but my social security is at a high amount. For example. My Fed inc is at $262.00., and my social security tax withheld is at $681.68. my total gross wage is at $10,994.86. I saw that and it had me worried. Did my employer do something wrong when taxing me?

A

AnthonyC

Employee

This is normal. Social Security and Medicare taxes are a certain percentage of your income and you don't get those refunded to you. For Federal income taxes, however, you can set how much of the withholding you want to be taken out every paycheck. Depending on your pay level, most employers won't withhold more federal tax than necessary. If you are single with no dependents and NOT being claimed as a dependent, then your standard deduction will be $10,350, which means you will only pay taxes on the remainder of your income (~$600). Thus, there was no reason for your employer to withhold more federal taxes.

You can always change this by asking for a W4 form and have them withhold more tax (you should have been given this form when you were hired). TurboTax has a calculator that can help you pick the right amount of exemptions. You would want to consider more withholding if you are being claimed as a dependent by someone or if you work multiple jobs as each individual job won't likely withhold a lot of taxes, but when you add them together you will need it.

https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/calculators/w4/