I just started a new job and I am four paychecks in now and they have not taken out any federal taxes. Is this normal? A friend told me that I am not making enough money and I am under the threshold and that is why. Does anybody know if that is correct? For reference I get paid biweekly and my checks are ranging from $545 to $940.
New job , no federal taxes withheld
byu/OkRepresentative748 intax
Posted by OkRepresentative748
5 Comments
Did you fill out a form W-4 when you started the job? If you did, you filled it out incorrectly and need to ask to update it. If not, you have to ask your employer to complete one.
If your income in 2026 is over the standard deduction $15,750, you will owe federal income tax if it’s not withheld. Based on your checks, your estimated income could be between $14-24k.
Are you sure you’re a w2 employee and not a 1099 contractor?
I’d expect some to be taken out for social security and medicare.
You can estimate your federal withholding with irs’s tool – https://www.irs.gov/individuals/tax-withholding-estimator
Depends on how you filled out your W-4.
For example, if you filled out your W-4 as “Single”, everything else blank, you wouldn’t have any federal income tax withheld unless the *taxable* part (i.e. after any pre-tax deductions) of a biweekly check was over about $613.
If you filled it out as “Married filing jointly”, nothing would be withheld unless the taxable part exceeded about $1239.
If you are a W-2 employee, there *isn’t* a minimum income threshold for federal payroll tax (Social Security / Medicare), unless you are a household employee making less than $2800 a year.
Since you are making more than that, if they aren’t withholding any taxes, they are either not doing payroll properly, or they have classified you as an independent contractor (1099) instead of an employee, whether correctly or incorrectly.
If they did withhold payroll tax, and you only mean they didn’t withhold federal *income* tax, their withholding depends on what you put on your W-4.
Just to clarify, is this new job a second job or did you stop working at your previous job and start working here?