Cape Blue

Be careful with budgeting at 68% - if you earn more than E3only you will pay a higher tax percentage as your state and federal marginal rates increase.

Federal rates here http://www.mydollarplan.com/tax-brackets/
California rates here http://www.tax-rates.org/California/income-tax
SS rates here (like UK National Ins) http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answ...-rate-for-2011

I would work on 64% and be pleasantly surprised, rather than the other way around.

Health care costs are typically around $1,000 pcm for a couple, frequently employers pay 70-80% so you are left with $200-$300 - there are still other medical costs though such as an annual deductible & co-pays and frequently the health insurance doesn't cover the full cost of a procedure (sometimes 90% and you have to find the 10%, after you have reached you deductible). All depends upon the quality of insurance your company provides.

Bob

Like I said, there might be, I don't know about CA, most places don't, but they do nickle and dime you else where such as on the car. If our state is to believed, our 11 year old car which we got 5 years ago is worth exactly the same as when we bought it, so the annual town excise tax hasn't gone down a penny, cheeky buggers

MsElui

property tax wont affect your take home pay - so thats a red herring. Its only paid if you buy a home - like council tax in the uk.

The benefit to owning your own home (ie and having to pay property tax) is that you can claim your mortgage interest back on your tax return.


Regarding taxes on your payroll.
You will have to potentialy pay
Federal
State
City of residence (can be more than one in a year if you move home)
city of employment (can be more than one in a year if you move jobs or offices)

Giantaxe

Sloppy wording... what you mean is that mortgage interest is typically deductible from your income for federal (and usually state) income tax purposes.

md95065

... as are the property taxes (but not the special assessments and fees) that you will pay as a property owner ...

MillyBean

City of residence (can be more than one in a year if you move home)
city of employment (can be more than one in a year if you move jobs or offices)

what are these and how much are they usually

Michael

No cities in California levie such taxes.

Giantaxe

A tax on income collected by certain cities. But as no city in CA collects such as tax, it's not relevant to your situation:

http://taxes.about.com/od/statetaxes...come-Taxes.htm

Michael

For FICA taxes (social security and medicare) the following applies.

Social Security: 6.20% of salary up to $106,000 - maximum contribution $6,621.60

Medicare: 1.65% of salary

The following tax calculator may help estimating your federal income tax liability. Select correct filing status, exemptions, dependents, and annual income.

http://www.dinkytown.net/java/Tax1040.html

MillyBean

Thanks Michael,

I will look at that link now in a moment. However I have come across some of these online calculators through google and I didn't understand what exemptions and credits/deductions we would be entitled to - given that I will not be working, we've 3 children and we would be renting at first until credit is built up to buy. I was also unsure how pensions(401 yes??) and medicare worked.

I know that HR will probably go through this with my husband in detail nearer the time but I am for now just trying to do a quick budget

Bob

Medicare/caid, you pay the tax on it and don't get to use it. 401K you contribute towards and it lowers the taxable amount of income.

Rental, your state might allow you to claim some of those expenses, or they might not. In MA, you can claim about $3K per year, which is about 2 months of rent, so not all that great a deduction, as you've got to be renting for 12 months, if you're renting for 6 months you're entitled to half the amount, but stupidly enough you can either only claim the whole amount or none at all on the tax return form as we found out last year or so when they audited our first return

ian-mstm

Maybe it's just me... but y'all seem to be getting bogged down with specifics. The OP was after "estimated % deductions". Nothing that anyone has written in the past 3 days has refuted the generally accepted notion that you'll lose 35% in deductions, and that your take home pay is generally 65% of your gross pay.

Ian

E3only

I would go 70:30 based on my own example AND higher deductions that the OP will get...not an expert and of course this can widely change depending on state, health care cost and 401k ....

Yeah Ian, call it 72.5:27.5 shall we ^_^

MillyBean

Thanks Ian - that is what I was after - however the rest of the information is also very handy to know and the specifics will be important in the future. I think the best thing to do will be to estimate 65%. 68% would be a bonus

Peter Newton

Ian- that's a great rule of thumb - I usually tell my clients to use 35% (unless they live in NY, NJ, or CA in which case I might go to 40% just to be on the safe side)