do residents pay taxes?

[medc]

do residents have to pay taxes out of their salaries?

how much is usually withheld in taxes out of a 50,000 salary?

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[Smurfette]

do residents have to pay taxes out of their salaries?

how much is usually withheld in taxes out of a 50,000 salary?

Yes, they pay taxes.
Taxes withheld vary by number of deductions (i.e. do you file single or married? do you have kids? etc.) and the state income tax as well. Keep in mind also that insurance and social security is also taken out of each paycheck. You can find an online calculator to determine taxes based on income if you are really curious, which you can also put in the appropriate number of deductions.

 

[Law2Doc]

do residents have to pay taxes out of their salaries?

how much is usually withheld in taxes out of a 50,000 salary?

Um yes, every person in the US who has income has to pay taxes. You will be taxed at whatever rate any US wage earner will be taxed for whatever you earn (there are plenty of online tax calculators), less whatever credits or deductions you might have. There is no "usual" withholding -- it depends on how many deductions you are taking -- ie head of household, spouse, kids, etc etc. Plus there will be state taxes as well as the federal in most states.

I don't understand why you would think that a resident wouldn't have to pay taxes... Get used to it -- you will be paying taxes every year from here on out for the rest of your life.

 

[Impromptu]

As a single person, a little over 20% of my paycheck each month ends up not being direct deposited into my bank account. That includes income, FICA, state, city, and all the other things that they want to take from me.

Mind you, I'll get a little of that of that back when I file a tax return, but not much.

 

[Law2Doc]

As a single person, a little over 20% of my paycheck each month ends up not being direct deposited into my bank account. ...

That actually sounds like a lot less than some of us are paying, with state and local I think for many it will be more like 25% with no refund at the end. But again, it all depends on your personal tax situation.

 

[avatarftw]

It might be advantageous to land a residency position in Texas, Florida, Washington, Nevada, and the rest of the no state income tax states.

However, its a small consideration. How likely or possible is it to do residency in a state outside your medical school state? For example, if you live in Florida is it feasible to do residency in Texas?

Yes, they pay taxes.
Taxes withheld vary by number of deductions (i.e. do you file single or married? do you have kids? etc.) and the state income tax as well. Keep in mind also that insurance and social security is also taken out of each paycheck. You can find an online calculator to determine taxes based on income if you are really curious, which you can also put in the appropriate number of deductions.

 

[medc]

ok. i just wanted to make sure. some of the big cities like NYC and boston are so expensive that i don't know how residents make it through after all those taxes...

 

[xanthines]

Dude, I'm a graduate student, make far less than residents, and I still have to pay taxes on my stipend. Does that seem right to you?

-X

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

Taxes. Sigh.

I make $31,000/yr and have about 20% taken out in taxes/medicare/social security etc. Nice to know as I watch my $135,000 debt balloon at current interest rates....

Xanthine, I feel you - I think its abominable that grad students are taxed considering their stipends. My boyfriend is doing his Masters, tasking home under $500 every two weeks, and still gets taxed. WTF, man.

 

[45408]

That actually sounds like a lot less than some of us are paying, with state and local I think for many it will be more like 25% with no refund at the end. But again, it all depends on your personal tax situation.

I'm having 19% withheld, but I have a wife and child. I'm probably having a little too much withheld, but I'm still going to get money back because of my tuition tax credit. Plus, I'm only working half the year, so my standard deduction will cover a lot more of my salary. I'll adjust accordingly in January once I've run the numbers.

If I were single and claiming only myself, it would be 27% withholding (according to my program's payroll calculator).

 

[dragonfly99]

About 25% of your salary if you are single...you can deduct some for student loan interest but that only saves you a few hundred dollars a year.
Residents who live in NYC/Boston/SF/LA will be living a less cushy lifestyle (in terms of apartment they can afford, etc.) than someone living in Iowa or Alabama or somewhere, since they'll make a very similar salary. Some of the big city hospitals (Boston, SF, NYC) having a housing stipend or own subsidized apartments that they lease to residents, but it still doesn't even out the lifestyle differences...if you want to live in one of the "cool" cities you have to accept that you'll have less money left at the end of the month.

Yes, you have to pay taxes. So do grad students. Even poor people who work as janitors, etc. and don't make very much have to pay taxes. It sucks, but it is what it is.

A few resident programs try to claim residents as students and thus get out of paying into social security fund for them, but then they withhold the money anyway and put it into some sort of retirement fund (from their own institution, etc.) so it ends up the same for the resident. Personally, I'd rather pay into social security because that helps you later when you retire.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

Personally, I'd rather pay into social security because that helps you later when you retire.

That's if you believe there will be any money for us when we retire...and considering the ****-pit that Social Security is in already and the looming Boomer retirement...guess we'll just borrow more money from China.

 

[AZhopeful]

Make sure that you pay off some of your principle(if you can) each year- the Lifetime Learning Tax Credit allows(I think) up to a $2000 tax credit for money spent toward student loan principle. There is no reason you shouldn't take advantage of it unless you're really strapped month-to-month: it's money that you would lose anyway(in taxes), only you get to have it do something constructive for you by paying into loans.

 

[fun8stuff]

hopefully for not much longer.
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/08/02/prca0802.htm

 

[Law2Doc]

hopefully for not much longer.
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/08/02/prca0802.htm

I wouldn't hold your breath. Nor would I be so sure that not having "employee" status will be a benefit. We may end up saving taxes but losing a lot of rights/benefits that come with the employee status.

 

[UserNameNeeded]

What rights do we have as employees now? We can't seem to unionize and get better working conditions, anyway.

 

[docB]

What rights do we have as employees now? We can't seem to unionize and get better working conditions, anyway.

Employees get a number of things that students don't. You get worker's comp. OSHA and the state and federal Dept.s of Labor oversee your working conditions.

A change to a student label could have some ramifications with these things.

Remember that this is being pushed by institutions looking to save money. If it were to go through #1 they'll cut resident pay by whatever the tax savings is and #2 they may continue on a cutting spree and curtail benefits as their obligations to students rather than employees will be different.

 

[Roofie]

What is argued in court often does not represent reality. The institutions argue that the money saved will be spent on resident education. However, the flaw in that argument is that already state and federal governments allocate funding that is adequate to educate residents. None of these institutions professing the argument have made binding allocations of those tax savings expressly for resident education. More than likely those funds will go towards benefits for permanent employees like staff and attendings.

When residents argue to be classified as employees, they want the protections afforded civil-service employees rather than as traditional "at-will" employees. "At-will" employees depend on the profit motivations of their private employers to maintain their jobs. If the value of the employee's services exceed his liabilities, the employee makes the employer a profit. Profit motivated employers do not terminate profitable employees. It's bad business.

Civil-service employees on the other hand work for an employer where this profit check is not present. Therefore corruption, arbitrary decisions, and other non-efficient decisions get made at some cost. Courts have granted civil service employees substantive protections in part to guard against these problems.

Residents get the shaft both ways. They work for programs where the profit check does not exist. Program directors and attendings do not care whether residents make them a profit or not. The program will get its funding from government sources regardless. Hence residents work in environments resembling a civil service with all of its inherent weaknesses. Yet the institutions in classifying residents as students do so to deny residents the substantive protections of civil service employees to avoid significant liability for the torts of their agents.

The resident as a student argument is romantic but far from the truth. Any resident can tell you that most of their time is spent working. Maybe their daily lectures and part of work rounds could reasonably be classified as education. The rest of the time residents work to take care of patients and prevent **** from hitting the fan on their watch.

An argument could reasonably be made that OR time is purely educational since the resident in that setting is not essential. The attending could easily do the procedure with the help of an OR tech. The resident does not save the attending time.

The same could not be said for residents in non-procedural fields. The resident actually saves the attending time when he does his job properly.

 

[Law2Doc]

...An argument could reasonably be made that OR time is purely educational since the resident in that setting is not essential. The attending could easily do the procedure with the help of an OR tech. The resident does not save the attending time....

I'm not sure your OR model is the one common at the typical teaching hospital. At many places, the senior residents actually do all the straightforward and house cases from beginning to end with help from the junior residents, and allow the attendings to have cases running in multiple ORs at the same time. That's really the business model that makes surgeons in academic settings a nice living. The junior resident is there learning and is essential in this capacity, because in a very short time he's going to be doing the cases, which is a very different role and mindset than the typical OR tech (who usually is more of a stand-in for the med student, not the resident, in this model -- ie retracting and cutting duties on top of their instrument handling and counting duties). In this setting, which again is not uncommon, the attending is frequently the "non-essential" person -- bouncing from room to room, often not even scrubbed in, and really just acting as a safety net for when his proteges get in trouble.
So actually, it's the non-surgical fields that often underutilize the residents as compared to the surgical ones.

 

[dynx]

I wouldn't hold your breath. Nor would I be so sure that not having "employee" status will be a benefit. We may end up saving taxes but losing a lot of rights/benefits that come with the employee status.

Agreed on the "careful what you ask for" warning but....
I'm hoping it pans out anyway. It will be after I've finished residency and there is a proposal to make it retroactive meaning check coming my way. Sign me up. Next generation can look out for themselves.

 

[Winged Scapula]

I'm not sure your OR model is the one common at the typical teaching hospital. At many places, the senior residents actually do all the straightforward and house cases from beginning to end with help from the junior residents, and allow the attendings to have cases running in multiple ORs at the same time. That's really the business model that makes surgeons in academic settings a nice living. The junior resident is there learning and is essential in this capacity, because in a very short time he's going to be doing the cases, which is a very different role and mindset than the typical OR tech (who usually is more of a stand-in for the med student, not the resident, in this model -- ie retracting and cutting duties on top of their instrument handling and counting duties). In this setting, which again is not uncommon, the attending is frequently the "non-essential" person -- bouncing from room to room, often not even scrubbed in, and really just acting as a safety net for when his proteges get in trouble.
So actually, it's the non-surgical fields that often underutilize the residents as compared to the surgical ones.

I rarely disagree with the usual good advice from L2D, but I need to offer a different perspective here.

Knowing that I am posting from my own experience at several hospitals (as a medical student, resident, fellow and now attending) and with knowledge of several others from close friends and colleagues, what he describes is not common in most general surgery ORs.

The days of true resident autonomy where the attending is not scrubbed in, and is running several rooms, is gone at many hospitals/programs. One reason is that faculty are under increasing public scrutiny (see recent revelations at Parkland in Dallas) to be present and performing not just the crucial portions of the procedure, but for the entire procedure. We are simply told that aside from the few real teaching cases for Chief Residents, we are not to allow residents to scrub cases without attending presence scrubbed in. The hospitals do not want the liability and will not allow us to take that on. I also get a lot of pushback from anesthesia who simply do not want to take the extra time to allow for residents slowing down the cases...this despite knowing that we have residents and med students.

In addition, given monetary concerns, many ORs do not have the staff to run several rooms. Speaking from experience when I want a second room simply to facilitate efficiency (ie, not waiting for room turn over time), I get pushback because anesthesia, circulators, etc. are at a premium and a second crew cannot be provided at the busiest places.

I cannot speak for surgical subspecialties and it was certainly true that in my days as a resident and fellow, I saw many ENT and Ortho residents doing basic cases ALONE while the attendings were in another room, this was simply not the case for Gen Surg and Surg Onc. Perhaps a difference of culture or liability, but you only need to talk to current GS residents who feel they are getting less autonomy than their predecessors and are suffering for it (or at least wondering if they are). I know that during my training we were not allowed to prep the patient unless the attending was in the building and had been seen by the scrub nurse/tech...my Chief residents told me that was NOT the case when they were juniors but that OR/hospital policy had changed radically. YMMV of course and perhaps at the programs where L2D is training, this is not the case.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

Yeah, at my school the attendings had to be present AND scrubbed in all cases. Occasionally this meant they would just sit (scrubbed) in the corner, but rarely.

If you're going to scrub anyway, why not get in on the action?

 

[45408]

Make sure that you pay off some of your principle(if you can) each year- the Lifetime Learning Tax Credit allows(I think) up to a $2000 tax credit for money spent toward student loan principle. There is no reason you shouldn't take advantage of it unless you're really strapped month-to-month: it's money that you would lose anyway(in taxes), only you get to have it do something constructive for you by paying into loans.

I'm pretty sure that credit can only be claimed in a year during which you paid tuition. If you're paying off your loans, you can deduct the interest, but you can't claim principal payments as a credit. By all means, correct me if I'm wrong (it would be great news).

 

[Law2Doc]

... I know that during my training we were not allowed to prep the patient unless the attending was in the building and had been seen by the scrub nurse/tech...my Chief residents told me that was NOT the case when they were juniors but that OR/hospital policy had changed radically. YMMV of course and perhaps at the programs where L2D is training, this is not the case.

I guess programs vary, and certainly for liability reasons I can understand why many places simply may not be comfortable with what you regard as the now historic model. All I can tell you is that at some places the attendings are present and in the room for the time-out, but then jump next door to start the next case while the senior starts the first case, and then pop in periodically to see how the senior is making out.

 

[Winged Scapula]

I guess programs vary, and certainly for liability reasons I can understand why many places simply may not be comfortable with what you regard as the now historic model. All I can tell you is that at some places the attendings are present and in the room for the time-out, but then jump next door to start the next case while the senior starts the first case, and then pop in periodically to see how the senior is making out.

I'm not denying it happens and its obvious that you have seen it first hand. My point is that this is increasingly rare and not standard operating procedure at many places.

 

[azzarah]

do residents have to pay taxes out of their salaries?

how much is usually withheld in taxes out of a 50,000 salary?

Here in MA, way too much!

 

[dpmd]

Make sure that you pay off some of your principle(if you can) each year- the Lifetime Learning Tax Credit allows(I think) up to a $2000 tax credit for money spent toward student loan principle. There is no reason you shouldn't take advantage of it unless you're really strapped month-to-month: it's money that you would lose anyway(in taxes), only you get to have it do something constructive for you by paying into loans.

You can't claim the lifetime learning credit for only paying back loan principle. You take the credit for the academic period you were in school (even if the loans paid for it and not you).

You might be thinking of the student loan interest deduction (although it deducts interest paid, not principle)

It is still good to pay any principle you can. Less principle now will mean less interest over the life of the loan (the issue gets a little muddy when you factor in what interest rate your loans have, versus what else you might do with that money but the days of the sub 3% education loan are gone si I won't get into that)

 

[Bobblehead]

What rights do we have as employees now? We can't seem to unionize and get better working conditions, anyway.

Residents can and have unionized.

http://www.cirseiu.org/

 

[Bobblehead]

Also anyone looking for a rough approximation of what their take-home pay will look like. There are a lot of good web calculators out there. Here's one example:

http://www.paycheckcity.com/