8/22 This is not a critical tax question so I'm not going to ask my
accountant. At any rate I used to claim "2" on my tax W2 and had
always gotten money back (a few thousand dollars a year) every year,
thanks to itemizing tax & owning my parents' properties in my name.
This year I decided that I'd get more money back immediately and
pay tax later, and decided to put down "3" instead of "2". However,
I'm still getting taxed at around 34% which is the same tax rate as
before! Below is the breakdown of my current tax:
Federal: 18.4% of my pay
SS Tax: 6.18%
Medicare: 1.44%
CA Tax: 6.69%
CA VDPI: 0.78% <-- BTW what is this?
Medical: 0.57%
Does this sound about right? Are you CA single dudes making 6
digits also getting taxed around 34% claiming "3" instead of "2"?
\_ Changing your withholding by 1 won't make a big change.
\_ See IRS Publication 15, Circular E. This has the formula
on how much each witholding does exactly. Assuming you are
paid semimonthly, each witholding means ~$137 of your salary
won't be taxed. So assumes you are at 35% bracket, you'll get
~$48 more a pay check.
\_ CA VPDI is voluntary plan disability insurance. It is similar to
SDI which is state-run. BTW, you can claim itemized deduction on
SDI but not on VPDI. |