General Information

This publication explains your tax responsibilities as an employer. It explains the requirements for withholding, depositing, reporting, and paying employment taxes. It explains the forms you must give your employees, those your employees must give you, and those you must send to the IRS and SSA. This guide also has tax tables you need to figure the taxes to withhold for each employee for 2002.

Additional employment tax information is available in Pub. 15-A, Employer's Supplemental Tax Guide. Pub. 15-A includes specialized information supplementing the basic employment tax information provided in this publication. Pub. 15-B, Employer's Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits, contains information about the employment tax treatment and valuation of various types of noncash compensation.

Most employers must withhold (except FUTA), deposit, report, and pay the following employment taxes--

• Income tax.
• Social security and Medicare taxes.
• Federal unemployment tax (FUTA).

There are exceptions to these requirements. See section 15, Special Rules for Various Types of Services and Payments. Railroad retirement taxes are explained in the Instructions for Form CT-1.

Federal Government employers. The information in this guide applies to Federal agencies except for the rules requiring deposit of Federal taxes only at Federal Reserve banks or through the FedTax option of the Government On-Line Accounting Link Systems (GOALS). See the Treasury Financial Manual (I TFM 3-4000) for more information.

State and local government employers. Employee wages are generally subject to Federal income tax withholding, but not Federal unemployment (FUTA) tax. In addition, wages, with certain exceptions, are subject to social security and Medicare taxes. See section 15 for more information on the exceptions.

You can get information on reporting and social security coverage from your local IRS office. If you have any questions about coverage under a section 218 (Social Security Act) agreement, contact the appropriate state official. To find out the State Social Security Administrator, contact the National Conference of State Social Security Administrators Web Site at www.ncsssa.org.

Previous| First | Next

Publication Index | IRS-Forms Main | Home