You’ll still pay property taxes if you own a home in Florida, and other purchases you make will be subject to the state’s 6% base sales tax rate, plus any county sales taxes that may apply.Ī financial advisor in Florida can help you understand how taxes fit into your overall financial goals. The lack of a state income tax might not be a determining factor for you while you’re in your working years, but it might play a role when you’re deciding where to live in retirement and you’re on a fixed income.īefore you get too excited about Florida’s lack of an income tax, remember that no state is entirely tax-free. In other words, if you move to Florida from a state like California that has an income tax and you make the same salary, your Florida paychecks will be bigger than your California paychecks were. You won’t see any Florida income tax withholding because there is no Florida state income tax. When you look at your pay stub you’ll see the above factors reflected. If you enroll in an employer-sponsored health insurance plan, it will affect your paycheck as well, but your monthly premium contributions are not pre-tax. You can also make pre-tax contributions by enrolling in flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs).
The advantage of pre-tax contributions is that they lower your taxable income. Money you contribute to a 401(k) is pre-tax, which means the contributions come out of your paycheck before income taxes are removed. For example, you might instruct your employer to withhold 10% of your earnings for a 401(k). Your employer might also withhold money if you’ve instructed it to do so as part of your employee benefit enrollment. single) and on taxable income and/or tax credits you indicate W-4 form. The rate at which your employer will apply federal income taxes will depend on your earnings on your filing status (e.g. This lets you pay your taxes gradually throughout the year rather than owing one giant tax payment in April. Your employer will also withhold money from every paycheck for your federal income taxes. For the most part, these W-4 changes mainly affect those adjusting their withholdings or changing jobs since the new W-4 became the standard.
Filers must also input dollar amounts for income tax credits, non-wage income, itemized and other deductions and total annual taxable wages. Rather than asking you to list total allowances, the new W-4 uses a five-step process that allows filers to enter personal information, claim dependents and indicate any additional income or jobs. In recent years, the IRS issued some notable revisions for the Form W-4. Earnings over $200,000 will be subject to an additional Medicare tax of 0.9%, not matched by your employer. Half of those are tax-deductible, though. Note that if you’re self-employed, you’ll need to pay the self-employment tax, which is the equivalent of twice the FICA taxes - 12.4% and 2.9% of your earnings. Your employer will match that by contributing the same amount. The FICA tax withholding from each of your paychecks is your way of paying into the Social Security and Medicare systems that you’ll benefit from in your retirement years.Įvery pay period, your employer will withhold 6.2% of your earnings for Social Security taxes and 1.45% of your earnings for Medicare taxes. FICA taxes combine to go toward Social Security and Medicare. But there’s no escaping federal tax withholding, as that includes both FICA and federal income taxes. Living in Florida or one of the other states without an income tax means your employer will withhold less money from each of your paychecks to pass on to tax authorities.