Overview
To ensure your quarterly and annual income taxes are accurately calculated, you will need to update your Heard account with year-to-date (YTD) tax withholdings from your W-2 form. This document will explain what withholdings are, how they are determined, and where to find them on your pay stub.
What is tax withholding?
By law, employers are required to withhold employment taxes by deducting the money from employee gross wages. Employment taxes include federal, state, Social Security, and Medicare taxes. This aims to make tax payments more manageable throughout the year, prevent large tax bills at filing time, and reduce the risk of tax evasion.
How withholdings are determined
The amount of income tax your employer withholds from your regular pay depends on two things:
- The amount you earn.
- The information you provided to your employer on Form W–4.
To calculate your withholdings, you may use the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator.
How to find your withholding amounts
In order to identify your Year-to-Date (commonly abbreviated as YTD) Federal and State Tax Withholding, please reference your most recent pay stub from your W-2 employer. This may be on a physical or online pay stub but should be reported wherever you have access to pay stubs.
Please reference a sample section of a pay stub below.
- Federal Income Tax: Please be sure to reference the "Year to Date" column. In the below example, the number you would look to identify is $15,265.29.
- State Income Tax: Please be sure to reference the "Year to Date" column. In the below example, the number you would look to identify is $5,556.72.
Please note, when completing the quarterly tax checklist, only enter Federal Income Tax and State Income tax amounts; do not enter other withholdings such as Medicare or Social Security.