Can unemployment insurance be considered a tax withheld from wages?

When it comes to bonuses. A company I worked for took the taxes out before it got to you. Whatever you had left was yours. I’m not an accountant or anything but that’s what I have seen for a bonus.

Any time the government takes my property, money, cash equivalent, or otherwise, without my consent, I call it a tax. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. Of course, that does not mean that the Internal Revenue Code agrees with me.

Payroll tells me: “There are a few states that have an unemployment tax. So the answer to that first question is yes, depending on the state and to answer your second question, all wages are subject to taxes.”

I think state UI is considered a tax for federal purposes because it is mandated by the state. Which means it can be a deduction on Federal taxes. But since the amount is negligible—maybe between 10 and 20 bucks for the year, the deduction won’t yield much more than maybe three to five dollars. A cup of coffee and a Danish, I think. It’s not worth thinking about. Besides, if you use software, it takes care of all that for you.

And certainly holiday bonuses are subject to tax. All earned income is subject to taxes at one point or another.