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Comment by dsp | Hacker News Reader

> withholding is set at a fixed rate at the beginning of the year

This is not correct. It's calculated per pay period. Please see IRS Publication 15 and 15-T.

This is the painful part about working jobs where you receive the bulk of your income in relatively few paychecks. You end up grossly overpaying on your taxes because they are essentially assuming that's the amount you receive every paycheck and withhold taxes accordingly. So if you work a boat load of OT every other pay period, and receive like $3k for the first half of a month, and $7k the next pay period, those $7k paychecks are taxed assuming you make $7k * 24 =168k each year, when, in reality you make $120k a year.

There's no good way around this either (to my knowledge). Other than maybe jacking up the number of dependents you have.

Yes, the standard withholding methods produce poor results when pay does not arrive evenly through the whole year.

It is possible for employers to use alternative methods. IRS Pub. 15-T sec. 6 has details on common alternatives and constraints.

I have no idea to what extent employers support any of these alternative methods. I imagine it's limited to employers where much of their workforce is overwithheld using the standard methods. One example might be a school district where teachers are only paid when in session.

There is an easy way - reduce your withholding and then pay your taxes in a timely manner in the new year to avoid the underpayment penalty.

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