What is "ca rs st" on my paycheck?

April 13, 2016 5:13 PM

Payroll deduction question: I'm in CA and get paid by several different companies, and I just got a paycheck with the big deduction for "ca rs st"? Does anyone know what that is?? Perhaps it has something to do with a new sick time benefit?
posted by PJSibling to Work & Money (8 answers total)

Not a tax expert but do you see any state income tax withholding anywhere else? Since you say it's large, it might be California (ca) Resident Status (rs) State (st) income tax withholding?
posted by wangarific at 5:22 PM on April 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think that's the California State Withholding (income tax) although I don't know where they get the "rs" from.
posted by bluecore at 5:24 PM on April 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Some cities have a local tax. Does rs sound like your city?
posted by jeffamaphone at 5:52 PM on April 13, 2016

Best answer: Your payroll office will have a little chart that explains all their codes. As a former HR person, let me tell you that I was absolutely thrilled to show it off when people came in asking about some weird new thing on their paycheck, because otherwise it just sat in a drawer getting dusty.

I agree it's probably "California" and "state;" "resident" seems like a really good guess for the middle word. In our database, though, when a jurisdiction changed its tax rate mid-year, our payroll officer indicated the second code in the database with what we all thought were random letters. It turned out they stood for "new tax." Which is another reason to ask your office for an explanation.
posted by SMPA at 5:54 PM on April 13, 2016

Also: we may be able to be more helpful if you can give us a percentage figure (from gross.) Or at least tell us if it's close in size to your federal withholding, FICA, etc.
posted by SMPA at 6:13 PM on April 13, 2016

Response by poster: It's the last deduction, after CA SDI, disability insurance, and it's almost as big as FICA!

I guess I'll call them tomorrow. I didn't want to bug them, but...as SMPA says, maybe they will be happy somebody cared!
posted by PJSibling at 8:28 PM on April 13, 2016

Response by poster: Okay, a knowledgeable friend told me it's CA income state tax. It stuck out so much because apparently we have the highest of the states who impose it. Yikes.
posted by PJSibling at 11:01 PM on April 13, 2016

Yes, you live in California. But pretty much all states will be higher than FICA, which is a measly 6 percent for OADSI, and 1.9 for Medicaid/Medicare.
posted by pwnguin at 10:17 PM on April 14, 2016