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Your 2018 Social Security payroll taxes: What they are and where they go
Everyone knows that Social Security taxes are withheld from their earnings, but the maximum earnings amount taxed changes periodically (often annually), so the total amount of tax you pay can change also. Your employer pays an equal amount, which means that Social Security collects 12.4% for every dollar you earn up to the annual cap, which for 2018 is $128,400. Further, another 1.45% Medicare tax is levied on your earnings, and also matched by your employer, and there is no earnings cap on this tax. Most people don’t exceed the annual payroll tax cap so don’t pay the maximum possible Social Security taxes, but everything collected goes into a Trust Fund to help pay benefits to all 62 million Americans receiving Social Security benefits. This article by Christy Bieber appears at madison.com and explains what the 2018 payroll tax cap is and where it goes. Click here to read more.
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