Publication 926 - Introductory Material
Change to social security and Medicare wage threshold. The social security and Medicare wage threshold is $1,600 for 2008. This means that if you pay a household employee cash wages
of less than $1,600
in 2008, you do not have to report and pay social security and Medicare taxes on that employee's 2008 wages. For more information,
see Social
security and Medicare wages on page 4.
Photographs of missing children. The Internal Revenue Service is a proud partner with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Photographs of
missing children
selected by the Center may appear in this publication on pages that would otherwise be blank. You can help bring these children
home by looking at the
photographs and calling 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678) if you recognize a child.
The information in this publication applies to you only if you have a household employee. If you have a household employee
in 2008, you may need to
pay state and federal employment taxes for 2008. You generally must add your federal employment taxes to the income tax that
you will report on your
2008 federal income tax return.
This publication will help you decide whether you have a household employee and, if you do, whether you need to pay federal
employment taxes
(social security tax, Medicare tax, federal unemployment tax, and federal income tax withholding). It explains how to figure,
pay, and report these
taxes for your household employee. It also explains what records you need to keep.
This publication also tells you where to find out whether you need to pay state unemployment tax for your household employee.
Comments and suggestions.
We welcome your comments about this publication and your suggestions for future editions.
You can write to us at the following address:
Internal Revenue Service
Business Forms and Publications Branch
SE:W:CAR:MP:T:B:C
1111 Constitution Ave. NW, IR-6526
Washington, DC 20224
We respond to many letters by telephone. Therefore, it would be helpful if you would include your daytime phone number,
including the area code, in
your correspondence.
You can email us at
*[email protected]. (The asterisk must be included in the
address.) Please put “
Publications Comment” on the subject line. Although we cannot respond individually to each email, we do appreciate your
feedback and will consider your comments as we revise our tax products.
Tax questions.
If you have a tax question, check the information available on
www.irs.gov or call 1-800-829-1040. We cannot answer tax questions sent to
either of the above addresses.
