Business Math

Use Microsoft Excel to open the spreadsheet:  payroll-17.xls

Then do the following instructions, and provide answers to the questions in a Word document.

On the spreadsheet, enter your name.  For July 7 and September 29, enter 40 regular hours and no overtime.  (The carried forward amounts of 1040 regular hours and 250 hours are permanent.)  For the other weeks, enter reasonable hours of your choice.  Include some scattered overtime.  Keep these values constant throughout this exploration.

1. Wage changes.
   1. Choose "single" from the marital status drop-down menu.  Enter 1 allowance, and enter a wage near the minimum wage.  Save this spreadsheet as payroll-1.
   2. Increase the wage by a few dollars.  Save this spreadsheet as payroll-2.
   3. Increase the wage to about $20 per hour.  Save this spreadsheet as payroll-3.
   4. For each of the three spreadsheets, using the cumulative amounts at the end of the third quarter, compute (by hand, this formula is not included in the spreadsheet) and report the percent of gross income that was withheld as taxes.  What trends do you observe?   Which taxes are causing the percents to change in this manner, and why?  Be specific.
2. Marital status.
   1. Choose "married" from the marital status drop-down menu.  Save this spreadsheet as payroll-4.
   2. Using the cumulative amount at the end of the third quarter, compute and report the percent of gross income that was withheld as taxes.  Compare the result with the "single" spreadsheet having the same wage.  Which marital status produced lower withholding taxes?
3. Allowances.
   1. Using either a "single" or a "married" spreadsheet, change the number of allowances to four.  Save this spreadsheet as payroll-5.
   2. Using the cumulative amount at the end of the third quarter, compute and report the percent of gross income that was withheld as taxes.  Compare the result with the related spreadsheet having just one allowance.  What effect do allowances have on withholding taxes?  Which seemed to have a greater effect on the percent withheld, the marital status or the allowances?
4. FICA.
   1. Using either marital status and any number of allowances, increase the hourly wage until you find a wage where the OASDI tax is withheld for every week in July, but not in any week of September.  Save this spreadsheet as payroll-6.
   2. At what annual income does OASDI cease?  Why is OASDI tax no longer withheld in September at this wage?

Turn in the Word document that contains your answers to the questions, and copies of the six Excel spreadsheets