Mike Samson is a college football coach making a base salary of $652,800 a year ($54,400 per month). Employers are required to withhold a 6.2% Social Security tax up to a maximum base amount and a 1.45% Medicare tax with no maximum. Assume the FICA base amount is $128,400. Required:
a. Compute how much will be withheld during the year for Coach Samson's Social Security and Medicare.
b. What matching amount will the employer need to contribute?

a. Compute how much will be withheld during the year for Coach Samson's Social Security and Medicare.

the current social security cap (for 2020) is $137,700. This means that $137,700 x 6.2% = $8,537.40 will be withheld during the year.

but since this question seems to be a little old (2018 actually), the maximum withholding should be $128,400 x 6.2% = $7,960.80 for social security

Medicare withholdings have no limit, but instead people earning above $200,000 must pay an additional 0.9%:

Medicare withholdings = ($200,000 x 1.45%) + ($452,800 x 2.35%) = $13,540.80

b. What matching amount will the employer need to contribute?

the employer must pay the $7,960.80 in social security taxes, but the employer only pays 1.45% for medicare taxes = $652,800 x 1.45% = $9,465.60

answer; ///deficit;