Defenestrating Thoughts from the Bivouac

Social security taxes are one of those great stealth taxes. Most people know that you pay 6.2% of your wages into the Social Security Trust, but most don’t know that your employer also pays 6.2%.  So you really pay 12.4% (which is indeed what self-employed people have to pay).

Social security taxes only apply up till a certain amount of your income. For 2007, it applied towards your first $97,500 of income. Next year it goes up to $102,000. You can see all the details here. So if you’re fortunate enough to make that much money, you’ll pay $558 more (or 4.62% more) for a total of $12,468.

I guess this adjustment comes every year, seems weird that you can just change payroll taxes without a vote. Maybe it was in some large budget bill or something.