US payroll rules for remote bookkeepers come down to four moves in a fixed order: classify the\nworker, withhold the right amounts, deposit on the government’s schedule, then file the returns\nthat reconcile it all. The rates are the easy half. Social Security runs at 6.2% on each side up to\na 2026 wage base of $184,500, Medicare at 1.45% each side with no ceiling, and neither has moved in\ndecades. What actually generates penalties is the deposit clock, and that clock was set by a\nlookback period two years before the payroll you’re processing today.<\/p>\n
This article works through those rules as an operating sequence rather than a rate table, at\nfederal level, at state level, and across the classification decision that sits underneath both.<\/p>\n
Here’s the part that changes how you should read the rest. When you run payroll for a US client\nfrom outside the US, you’re operating inside someone else’s compliance obligation, and the exposure\ndoesn’t stay tidily on their side of the line. The Trust Fund Recovery Penalty can reach an agent\nwith authority over a business’s funds, at 100% of the withheld tax that never made it to the\nTreasury. That’s worth reading twice before you accept signing authority on a client’s bank\naccount.<\/p>\n
Fair warning: 2026 also moved the paperwork. Three new Form W-2 box 12 codes went live, box 14 split\ninto two, and the wage-reporting threshold shifted for the first time in a generation. Most payroll\nguides currently ranking for this topic still describe the 2024 position, which is why the last\nsection deals with what changed rather than what has always been true.<\/p>\n
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