this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
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Yes and no. You’re right of course that part of pay is withheld and paid as tax, but that isn’t what I was referring to. There is an additional component, beyond what is withheld from employee pay, which is paid directly from the business to the state which the employee never sees. It’s a similar amount.
Yeah but even that is sort of a tax on employees
When our business decides how much we can afford to pay someone for a position, the math is always with what that payroll tax is included.
So without the payroll tax we may be able to afford paying someone $25/hour.
With it we may only be able to afford to pay them $22/hour.
It reduces the amount we can afford to pay the employee, even though it's technically never given to them in the first place it's money that could have gone to them.
I would love to pay more but that tax takes it out of my hands.
But that doesn't mean it's a tax on the employee. That's like saying sales tax is on the business, when it's actually on the customer.
I take it that they mean that it is indirectly a tax on the employee in the sense that it is money the employee could have earned but does not because the company has to pay the tax. Could have earned as in the salary could have been higher without it.
On the otherhand, that is true for any tax a company has to pay, just not as directly releated.
(Or I could be wrong and they mean something else.)
If you must twist everything around in order to make it about the government and business screwing the employee, then you must.
I could just as easily say that the business has to pay employees more to make up for what they’re going to lose to payroll tax deductions so even the employee side tax is a tax on the business!
Or we could just be adults and admit that the government taxes the employee and the business both.