Originally Posted by
iarapilot
Living in VA also; and I thought/was waiting for another check just for the 15th amount. The deposit that was made was quite less than the retro amount.
I wonder if 2 deposits were made instead of one, would the tax bracket have been that much less, therefore getting a little more take home.
Answer: Not really.
The real reason it looks smaller than a normal paycheck of the same gross amount is due to the federal withholding rate. FedEx, like most companies, considers things like signing bonus, vacation buy back, and other non-paycheck payments as supplemental payments for tax purposes. They apply a flat 25% withholding rate
to the amount left after pre-tax items are deducted (401k, etc) aka federal taxable wages.