Imputed Income on (US) paycheck stub

[AC]

On 2015-03-31 07:09, Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
> On 3/31/2015 12:59 AM, Michael Wagner wrote:
>> My wife's pay check includes a line called "Imputed Income" - I think
>> it's a tax artifice (the money doesn't show up under deductions or get
>> deposited anywhere, near as I can tell. I think it's way of taxing
>> some fringe benefits.
>>
>> How do I track "Imputed Income"? Is it an expense?
>>
>> Is it income account?
>>
>>
>> Mike
> 
> 
> Neither. It is an amount you may need for tax purposes but not
> necessarily an "on the books" item for you. For those who don't
> understand what we are talking about I'll give an example. An employer
> is allowed to offer as a "fringe benefit" an insurance policy allowing
> the employee to name the beneficiary. Common is one or more times annual
> salary. The premiums paid for the first 50,000 of any such policy is not
> taxable but the premium for coverage above that is. That amount is the
> sort of thing that appears on your W2 or 1099 as imputed income.
> 
> The idea that your books could represent your tax liability is naive. It
> might not be possible to determine what income is taxable and what is
> not until tax return is being filled out. For example, consider SS
> income. Whether your social security gets taxed at all, or if so, what
> percentage of it gets taxed, depends on how much OTHER income you end up
> with!
> 
> It might be important to take into consideration other "off the books"
> fringe benefits when considering competing job offers, etc. Use a
> spreadsheet, not accounting software for that.  It can be hard to put
> dollar amounts on many of thee in any case.
> 

I disagree because my own paycheck goes against your example.  My
employer does offer insurance on my income as one of the benefits.
However, the premium is taken after taxes are computed on my income.  It
comes from my net (take home) pay rather than my gross pay.  So my taxes
are higher than they would be if the premium were deducted prior to
computing the taxes.  The payment does not show up on W2's, 1099's or
anywhere else because it's an after-tax cost.  My health insurance does
appear on my paycheck as a pre-tax item but that doesn't show up on my
W2 either and certainly not as any form of Imputed Income.  A W2 doesn't
even have an imputed income line.

However, when I was first employed, the employer paid for my relocation
expenses.  This, and only this, has appeared on my paycheck as an actual
Imputed Income line item on the pay stub.  My W2 from that year does not
have an Imputed Income line item either.  It just shows a larger
reported income which has the value of the imputed income rolled into
it.  The tax withheld that is reported on the W2 also reflects the
higher tax withheld on that one paycheck with the imputed income.  The
only place the word "imputed" showed up is my paycheck stub just after
the moving expenses were paid (about three months after I started).  The
rest of my paychecks only list pre-tax and post-tax deductions.