What do these tax acronyms on my paycheck deductions stand for? $95 seems high

But what if there's something like "SDI" or "SUI"? I see those on mine too and have no idea what they are. Also, is there a way to reduce these deductions or am I just stuck paying them?

SDI stands for State Disability Insurance, which is a program in some states like California that provides short-term benefits if you can't work due to non-work-related illness, injury, or pregnancy. SUI is State Unemployment Insurance, which employers pay to fund unemployment benefits, though in some states employees contribute too. For reducing deductions, mandatory ones like Social Security and Medicare are fixed percentages that you can't change. For federal and state income tax withholding, you can adjust by submitting a new W-4 form to your employer with different allowances, but be careful - if you withhold too little, you might owe taxes plus penalties when filing your return.

Does it work for all types of pay stubs? My company uses this weird payroll system that nobody seems to understand, and I'm always confused about whether I'm being paid correctly.

I'm skeptical about using services like that with my personal financial info. Do they store your pay stub info or is it just a one-time analysis? Security is important to me.

It works with pretty much any pay stub format I've seen. It's designed to recognize all the standard payroll systems plus a bunch of the less common ones. I had a pretty unusual layout on mine and it still figured everything out correctly. For security concerns, they don't permanently store your pay stubs. They use the information to generate the analysis and explanation, but they don't keep the documents on their servers long-term. They explain their privacy policy pretty clearly on the site, which made me comfortable using it.

How does this actually work? Do they somehow have a special line to the IRS or something? I've spent entire afternoons on hold before, so this sounds too good to be true.

This sounds like a scam. There's no way to "cut the line" with the IRS. They're probably just charging people for something they could do themselves for free. Has anyone actually verified this works?

They don't have a special line to the IRS - they use technology to wait on hold for you. You register your issue, and their system keeps your place in the queue. When an agent finally picks up, their system calls your phone and connects you directly to the agent. It's basically like having someone else sit on hold instead of you. No, it's definitely not a scam. I was skeptical too until I used it. I'd literally been trying to get through to the IRS for weeks about a tax notice I received. With Claimyr, I got through in a single afternoon and got my issue resolved. The time saved was absolutely worth it for me.

Thanks so much for this list! I'm seeing most of these on my stub. Quick follow up - is there any way to figure out if the amounts being taken out are correct? I'm especially confused about the Fed WH amount since it seems to change a lot between checks.

Federal withholding amounts can vary between paychecks if your income fluctuates. This happens because tax withholding is calculated based on your projected annual income from each check. If you earn more in one pay period (maybe from overtime or a bonus), the system will withhold at a higher rate assuming you'll make that amount all year. You can verify if your withholding is accurate by using the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator on the IRS website. It helps calculate approximately how much should be withheld based on your specific situation. If the withholding seems off, you might need to submit a new W-4 form to your employer to adjust your withholding.

That's actually not normal - federal tax rates are generally higher than state rates. In California, state income tax can be high but still shouldn't exceed federal in most cases. You might want to check if your W-4 withholding information is correct. Sometimes if you filled out the state and federal forms differently, it can cause this kind of imbalance.