Yes, bonuses go into Box 1 of your W-2, just like other income.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

takoma wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bonuses are taxed as capital gains. We just set up our "salary" and "bonuses" in our company so we can have lower taxes.

Sounds like a scam. Call your compensation "bonus" rather than "salary" and you get to screw Uncle Sam (i.e., the rest of us) out of a big chunk of taxes?

Bonuses are taxed as regular W2 income. Look at your paycheck and see for yourself.

Never had a bonus on a paycheck. If it's taxed as income, that's fine, but I was responding to the PP who sad otherwise.

That was me again, which was probably obvious. Too bad I had forgotten to sign in and could not go back to correct my typo.

Anonymous wrote:

takoma wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bonuses are taxed as capital gains. We just set up our "salary" and "bonuses" in our company so we can have lower taxes.

Sounds like a scam. Call your compensation "bonus" rather than "salary" and you get to screw Uncle Sam (i.e., the rest of us) out of a big chunk of taxes?

Bonuses are taxed as regular W2 income. Look at your paycheck and see for yourself.

Never had a bonus on a paycheck. If it's taxed as income, that's fine, but I was responding to the PP who sad otherwise.

takoma wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bonuses are taxed as capital gains. We just set up our "salary" and "bonuses" in our company so we can have lower taxes.

Sounds like a scam. Call your compensation "bonus" rather than "salary" and you get to screw Uncle Sam (i.e., the rest of us) out of a big chunk of taxes?

Bonuses are taxed as regular W2 income. Look at your paycheck and see for yourself.

Anonymous wrote:Bonuses are taxed as capital gains. We just set up our "salary" and "bonuses" in our company so we can have lower taxes.

Sounds like a scam. Call your compensation "bonus" rather than "salary" and you get to screw Uncle Sam (i.e., the rest of us) out of a big chunk of taxes?

Bonuses are taxed as capital gains. We just set up our "salary" and "bonuses" in our company so we can have lower taxes.

Anonymous wrote:Salary $1,000,000
Bonus $5,000,000
Total Annual Compensation $6,000,000
STOCK OPTIONS*

Restricted Stock Awards $7,952,400
All Other Compensation $579,624
Exercised Options 2,727,321
Exercised Options Value $22,942,364
Exercisable Options 1,294,206
Exercisable Options Value $8,146,920
Unexercisable Options 563,562
Total Value of Options $31,089,284
Total Number of Options 4,585,089
TOTAL COMPENSATION*

Total Annual Cash Compensation $6,579,624
Total Short Term Compensation $6,000,000
Other Long Term Compensation $8,532,024
Total Calculated Compensation $20,816,289


http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=170444&ticker=JPM:US

This is 2010 numbers, but maybe 6 million is "wages".

That's not how it works. Restricted Stock grants and stock option exercises are taxed as W2 (ie wage) income. The subsequent increase in value would be taxed as capital gains.

Salary $1,000,000
Bonus $5,000,000
Total Annual Compensation $6,000,000
STOCK OPTIONS*

Restricted Stock Awards $7,952,400
All Other Compensation $579,624
Exercised Options 2,727,321
Exercised Options Value $22,942,364
Exercisable Options 1,294,206
Exercisable Options Value $8,146,920
Unexercisable Options 563,562
Total Value of Options $31,089,284
Total Number of Options 4,585,089
TOTAL COMPENSATION*

Total Annual Cash Compensation $6,579,624
Total Short Term Compensation $6,000,000
Other Long Term Compensation $8,532,024
Total Calculated Compensation $20,816,289


http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=170444&ticker=JPM:US

This is 2010 numbers, but maybe 6 million is "wages".

Who cares? If this were a capitalist country as opposed to a crony-capitalist country, he would be out of a job and out any wages since 2007 as his bank and all the other big ones would have gone bust (although he would still be living high on the hog on what he made building a too big to fail bank).
His so-called wages are taxpayer money.

I think it's pretty easy to tell if the article is accurate. Most of the first 20 million is taxed as regular income (except the $6 million in options assuming they are ISOs).

The rest of the $42 million is therefore dividends or capital gains from earlier restricted stock grants. And of course this does not include his other investment income that is unconnected to his employment.

So basically half is at the low rate, half at the high rate.

I first came across this story on Atrios' blog, but thought I'd post about it here. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was quoted by the AP as saying the following:

"Most of us wage earners are paying 39.6 percent in taxes and add in another 12 percent in New York state and city taxes and we're paying 50 percent of our income in taxes," Dimon said in defense of his fellow Wall Street bankers.

If this is Dimon's understanding of our tax system, it is really no surprise that his bank needed to be bailed out. Like everyone, Dimon has a number of exemptions to his taxable income. So, not all of his income is taxed in the first place. Then, tax rates are marginal. So, not all is taxed at the highest rate. Moreover, the top tax rate at the moment is not 39.6 percent. The top tax rate is 35 percent and that only kicks in at $379,151 (for married filing jointly or single) and everything below that is taxed at a lower rate. 39.6 percent was the rate before the Bush tax cuts.

According to Reuters, Dimon's compensation last year was $42 million.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/08/us-jpmorgan-idUSTRE73681B20110408

Since much of his income was not wage income, he probably pays a lower rate on a large portion of his earnings as well. It would be interesting to know his actual tax rate. But, I bet he would not be as eager to disclose that as he is to make the false claims reported above.