Form 1040, officially, the U.S. Individual Income Tax Return, is an IRS tax form used for personal federal income tax returns filed by United States residents. The form calculates the total taxable income of the taxpayer and determines how much is to be paid to or refunded by the government.
The United States of America has separate federal, state, and local governments with taxes imposed at each of these levels. Taxes are levied on income, payroll, property, sales, capital gains, dividends, imports, estates and gifts, as well as various fees. In 2020, taxes collected by federal, state, and local governments amounted to 25.5% of GDP, below the OECD average of 33.5% of GDP.
A pay-as-you-earn tax (PAYE), or pay-as-you-go (PAYG) in Australia, is a withholding of taxes on income payments to employees. Amounts withheld are treated as advance payments of income tax due. They are refundable to the extent they exceed tax as determined on tax returns. PAYE may include withholding the employee portion of insurance contributions or similar social benefit taxes. In most countries, they are determined by employers but subject to government review. PAYE is deducted from each paycheck by the employer and must be remitted promptly to the government. Most countries refer to income tax withholding by other terms, including pay-as-you-go tax.
Payroll taxes are taxes imposed on employers or employees, and are usually calculated as a percentage of the salaries that employers pay their employees. By law, some payroll taxes are the responsibility of the employee and others fall on the employer, but almost all economists agree that the true economic incidence of a payroll tax is unaffected by this distinction, and falls largely or entirely on workers in the form of lower wages. Because payroll taxes fall exclusively on wages and not on returns to financial or physical investments, payroll taxes may contribute to underinvestment in human capital, such as higher education.
The Federal Insurance Contributions Act is a United States federal payroll contribution directed towards both employees and employers to fund Social Security and Medicare—federal programs that provide benefits for retirees, people with disabilities, and children of deceased workers.
Three key types of withholding tax are imposed at various levels in the United States:
Form 1099 is one of several IRS tax forms used in the United States to prepare and file an information return to report various types of income other than wages, salaries, and tips. The term information return is used in contrast to the term tax return although the latter term is sometimes used colloquially to describe both kinds of returns.
Tax withholding, also known as tax retention, Pay-As-You-Go/Pay-As-You-Earn, tax deduction at source or a Prélèvement à la source, is income tax paid to the government by the payer of the income rather than by the recipient of the income. The tax is thus withheld or deducted from the income due to the recipient. In most jurisdictions, tax withholding applies to employment income. Many jurisdictions also require withholding taxes on payments of interest or dividends. In most jurisdictions, there are additional tax withholding obligations if the recipient of the income is resident in a different jurisdiction, and in those circumstances withholding tax sometimes applies to royalties, rent or even the sale of real estate. Governments use tax withholding as a means to combat tax evasion, and sometimes impose additional tax withholding requirements if the recipient has been delinquent in filing tax returns, or in industries where tax evasion is perceived to be common.
An S corporation, for United States federal income tax, is a closely held corporation that makes a valid election to be taxed under Subchapter S of Chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code. In general, S corporations do not pay any income taxes. Instead, the corporation's income and losses are divided among and passed through to its shareholders. The shareholders must then report the income or loss on their own individual income tax returns.
The United States federal government and most state governments impose an income tax. They are determined by applying a tax rate, which may increase as income increases, to taxable income, which is the total income less allowable deductions. Income is broadly defined. Individuals and corporations are directly taxable, and estates and trusts may be taxable on undistributed income. Partnerships are not taxed, but their partners are taxed on their shares of partnership income. Residents and citizens are taxed on worldwide income, while nonresidents are taxed only on income within the jurisdiction. Several types of credits reduce tax, and some types of credits may exceed tax before credits. An Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) applies at the federal and some state levels.
Form W-9 is used in the United States income tax system by a third party who must file an information return with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). It requests the name, address, and taxpayer identification information of a taxpayer.
Form W-4 is an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax form completed by an employee in the United States to indicate his or her tax situation to the employer. The W-4 form tells the employer the correct amount of federal tax to withhold from an employee's paycheck.
Misclassification of employees as independent contractors is the way in which the United States and other countries classify the problem of false self-employment. In the U.S., it can occur with respect to tax treatment or the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Taxpayers in the United States may face various penalties for failures related to Federal, state, and local tax matters. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is primarily responsible for charging these penalties at the Federal level. The IRS can assert only those penalties specified imposed under Federal tax law. State and local rules vary widely, are administered by state and local authorities, and are not discussed herein.
The United States Internal Revenue Service uses forms for taxpayers and tax-exempt organizations to report financial information, such as to report income, calculate taxes to be paid to the federal government, and disclose other information as required by the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). There are over 800 various forms and schedules. Other tax forms in the United States are filed with state and local governments.
In the United States, the combination of payroll taxes withheld from a household employee and the employment taxes paid by their employer are commonly referred to as the nanny tax. Under US law, any family or individual that pays a household employee more than a certain dollar amount per year must withhold and pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, also known as FICA. The law mandates that all domestic workers, such as cooks, nannies, housekeepers and gardeners, are subject to the nanny tax. Federal unemployment insurance taxes must also be paid if the household pays any number of employees a total of $1,000 or more in a calendar quarter. State unemployment insurance taxes have the same requirement with the exceptions of California ($750), New York ($500), and Washington, D.C. ($500), which have lower thresholds.
A statutory employee is an independent contractor under American common law who is treated as an employee, by statute, for purposes of tax withholdings. For a standard independent contractor, an employer cannot withhold taxes. Statutory employees are also permitted to deduct work-related expenses on IRS Schedule C instead of Schedule A in the United States tax system. As a result, they are allowed a greater tax deduction for business expenses than standard employees, as Schedule C expenses are not subject to the 2% adjusted gross income threshold as seen with Schedule A.
In the United States, Form 1099-MISC is a variant of Form 1099 used to report miscellaneous income. One notable use of Form 1099-MISC was to report amounts paid by a business to a non-corporate US resident independent contractor for services, but starting tax year 2020, this use was moved to the separate Form 1099-NEC. The ubiquity of the form has also led to use of the phrase "1099 workers" or "the 1099 economy" to refer to the independent contractors themselves. Other uses of Form 1099-MISC include rental income, royalties, and Native American gaming profits.
Forms 1042, 1042-S and 1042-T are United States Internal Revenue Service tax forms dealing with payments to foreign persons, including non-resident aliens, foreign partnerships, foreign corporations, foreign estates, and foreign trusts.
In the United States, Form 1099-R is a variant of Form 1099 used for reporting on distributions from pensions, annuities, retirement or profit sharing plans, IRAs, charitable gift annuities and Insurance Contracts. Form 1099-R is filed for each person who has received a distribution of $10 or more from any of the above.
