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This is an anecdote that I have not tried to verify, so take that for what it's worth. A colleague in the early 2000s immigrated from New Zealand to the US. His

This is an anecdote that I have not tried to verify, so take that for what it's worth. A colleague in the early 2000s immigrated from New Zealand to the US. His wife went to get a job at a grocery store, and he told me that he was amazed that the hiring manager could not tell them how much of her pay would go to taxes. The implication being that this sort of thing is easy to figure out in NZ, but impossible in the US because of complexities in the US income tax system.

vkou 6y ago
> His wife went to get a job at a grocery store, and he told me that he was amazed that the hiring manager could not tell them how much of her pay would go to taxes. The implication being that this sort of thing is easy to figure out in NZ, but impossible in the US because of complexities in the US income tax system. That's because the hiring manager doesn't need to understand tax rates to do his job. He plugs the numbers into the black-box HR system, and the system spits out dollars, that he pays employees with. The reason for why you have no idea how much the government will take in taxes, is because income taxes are progressive, and are charged based on total income earned per year. So, someone working at a $200,000/year job for a year, will have a tax rate of ~26.5% (I'm ignoring Social Security). But if they were unemployed for 9 months, and started working that job on October 1st, they will have a tax rate of ~16.5%. What this means is that when you start a job, you have to guess what your likely annual tax rate is going to be, and set up withholding for that amount. If you underpay by a large enough sum, the IRS will send you a bill, with an extra penalty next April. If you overpay, the IRS will send you a tax return.
- codedokode 6y ago
  Here in Russia we use another system: employees don't have to pay taxes from their wages themselves. It is company's responsibility to calculate and pay it. This system has an advantage, that most people don't have to bother with filling out complicated forms every year, but it has also disadvantages because people don't see how much money they give to the state.
gamblor956 6y ago
As vkou said, the hiring manager has no idea what taxes the wife will pay...but the payroll manager does, and could probably tell her exactly what she would pay based on her start date, estimated wages based on expected shifts, and exemptions. Expecting the hiring manager to know the tax stuff would be like expecting the dev team to know how much income tax the business is going to pay.

vkou 6y ago

> His wife went to get a job at a grocery store, and he told me that he was amazed that the hiring manager could not tell them how much of her pay would go to taxes. The implication being that this sort of thing is easy to figure out in NZ, but impossible in the US because of complexities in the US income tax system. That's because the hiring manager doesn't need to understand tax rates to do his job. He plugs the numbers into the black-box HR system, and the system spits out dollars, that he pays employees with. The reason for why you have no idea how much the government will take in taxes, is because income taxes are progressive, and are charged based on total income earned per year. So, someone working at a $200,000/year job for a year, will have a tax rate of ~26.5% (I'm ignoring Social Security). But if they were unemployed for 9 months, and started working that job on October 1st, they will have a tax rate of ~16.5%. What this means is that when you start a job, you have to guess what your likely annual tax rate is going to be, and set up withholding for that amount. If you underpay by a large enough sum, the IRS will send you a bill, with an extra penalty next April. If you overpay, the IRS will send you a tax return.

codedokode 6y ago
Here in Russia we use another system: employees don't have to pay taxes from their wages themselves. It is company's responsibility to calculate and pay it. This system has an advantage, that most people don't have to bother with filling out complicated forms every year, but it has also disadvantages because people don't see how much money they give to the state.

gamblor956 6y ago

As vkou said, the hiring manager has no idea what taxes the wife will pay...but the payroll manager does, and could probably tell her exactly what she would pay based on her start date, estimated wages based on expected shifts, and exemptions. Expecting the hiring manager to know the tax stuff would be like expecting the dev team to know how much income tax the business is going to pay.