What are the various taxes taken out of a typical paycheck?

Bizzy B.: What are the various taxes taken out of a typical paycheck?
What are the various taxes that are taken out of a typical paycheck? Income tax, social security tax, etc. Are any of them optional? I have limited experience with this.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Maggie G
Typically, the will take out for Federal tax, FICA(Social Security) and State tax. Depending on where you live, the may take out a local or county tax.

Your have no choice about FICA.

For Fed and state taxes, the amount they take out is dependent on how you fill out your W2 and state tax forms. It is possible to claim exempt under certain circumstances, which will tell your employer to not withhold any money for these taxes. But if you do this, you need to know that if you don’t have federal or state taxes taken out of your check, you will be liable for the full amount owed to the IRS and state when you file your taxes for the year. You could also owe penalties for owing too much.

Answer by Judy
Social security and medicare are mandatory.

Federal income tax withholding depends on what you put on your W-2. If you’re going to owe more than a few hundred dollars, you’re required to have them withheld.

State and local taxes can be mandatory or optional to have withheld, depending on wwhere you are.

A tax being optional doesn’t mean it’s optional to PAY if you owe it, just that you don’t necessarily have to have it withheld.

Answer by Flower
As the old saying goes, “only two things are certain in this life, death and taxes”