income tax tables

On March 23, 2010 President Obama signed into law one of the largest and most controversial pieces of legislation called the Patient Affordable Care Act (aka Health Care Reform Bill). This new legislation is so complex that it will take nearly eight years to fully implement. The first stage takes effect in 2010 with four distinct provisions. This article will address one of those provisions, The Small Business Tax Credit.

Beginning January 1, 2010, small businesses who contribute 50% or more toward their employees health
insurance premiums for are eligible for a non-refundable small business income tax credit. This provision creates two classes of employers:
1. Eligible small employers and
2. Large employers.

Eligible small employers are defined as employers with 25 or fewer full-time employees with average annual wages of $50,000 or less. Everyone else exceeding these thresholds is, by default, a large employer and not eligible for the credit.

Full-Time Employees:
To determine the number of eligible full-time employees (FTE), an employer must divide total hours worked by all employees by 2,080. Total hours worked by employees cannot include hours worked by any employee that exceeds 2,080 hours for the year. Thus, overtime is excluded from the calculation of total hours. 5% owners and 2% S Corporation shareholders are not considered employees for purposes of the full-time employee calculation.

Average Annual Wages:
To determine the average annual wage base, an employer must divide total wages paid to employees during the year by the total number of full-time employees (from previous calculation). 5% owners and 2% S Corporation shareholders are not considered employees for purposes of the average annual wage base calculation.

Calculation of the Non-Refundable Income Tax Credit:
A maximum non-refundable income tax credit of 35% will be available only to employers with 10 or fewer full-time employees and average annual wages of $25,000 or less. This credit is applied to the employer’s share of health insurance premiums and this dollar amount is the credit that is applied against business income tax (or passed through to partners or S Corporation shareholders). The amount of the credit utilized to reduce income tax reduces the employer’s health insurance deduction for the year.

These are the two baselines for the credit:

10 full-time employees and
$25,000 in average annual wages.
As the number of FTEs rise above 10 and/or the average annual wage base rises above $25,000, the credit quickly disappears. This is known as a phase-out, and because of the complexity of the formula to determine an employer’s eligible credit, a table was created to make it easier to compute the eligible credit. For example, if an employer has 11 FTEs with an average annual wage base of $15,000, the credit is 33%. For each additional FTE above 10, the credit is reduced by 2%. If an employer has 10 FTEs with an average annual base exceeding $25,000, but not exceeding $30,000, the credit is 28%. The credit is reduced by 7% as the average annual wage base exceeds the $25,000, $30,000, $35,000, $40,000 and $45,000 average annual wage base table amount. If you use the tables, the credit is 0% once the total number of full-time employees exceed 24.9 or once the average annual wage exceeds $45,999.

Other Rules:

1. Aggregation rules apply, which means affiliated companies must be aggregated in determining eligibility, the number of full-time employees and average annual wage base.
2. The credit may be applied against regular income tax and alternative minimum tax.
3. If an eligible small business employer qualifies for the credit but cannot use the credit in the current year, they may carry the credit back one year to use against the prior year’s income tax.

There is also a credit for non-profit organizations of 25%. This credit, unlike the 35% business credit, may be used to reduce the Medicare portion of payroll taxes (Form 941 will have a line item for this credit).

Tom is a Certified Public Accountant, a Certified Financial Planner, CLTC (Certified Long-Term Care) and President of Cerefice & Company, the largest CPA firm in Rahway, New Jersey. Tom works with clients helping them manage their money, retirement planning, college savings, life insurance needs, IRAs and qualified plan rollovers with an eye towards maximizing tax benefits and minimizing taxes. Tom is founder of the Rich Habits Institute and author of “Rich Habits”.

How much tax/duty does the average person pay (% of income) and where are we in the world tax league table?

By tax and duty I mean the tax and duty the average person pays per year (e.g. income tax, VAT, duty on petrol/cigarettes/spirits, tax on insurance, tax on flights etc etc etc)
This question relates to UK

The best way to calculate overall tax rates is to add up everything the country earns (the GDP) and everything the government spends. Expressing government expenditure as a percentage of GDP gives an overall measure, and automatically takes account of all exemptions and also of double taxation (e.g. when we buy petrol out of taxed income, then pay duty and finally pay VAT on the duty we’ve already paid). It also aggregates personal and corporate taxation – which is important, as even corporate taxation (invisible to the average wage earner) still comes out of his efforts.

As I understand it. the government currently spends rather more than 50% of our GDP. This means that our own spending decisions affect less than half of what we work for. That man in Downing Street spends the rest for us.

It is well known that what the government does on our behalf is badly done – look at health, education, border policing etc. Perhaps there is a case for some sort of yearly ballot to set the percentage of our money the government is allowed to take. Then we could perhaps reclaim some of the freedoms we have progressively lost over the last few years.

Federal Income Withholding Tax Tables for 2009, 2010