<prompt> Human: Last year I started working as a server at a pizza place here in Wisconsin. I was working an average of 3-4 nights a week for about 4-6 hours a shift. My hourly wage to be paid by my employer was 2.13 or 2.33, if I remember correctly which obviously I dont since theres two numbers lol. Anyways this low hourly wage, whatever it was exactly, only resulted in me being compensated with a 5 check every two weeks. Always exactly 5. After some consideration I realized this didnt make much sense to me and asked a few employees who told me they didnt know how it worked either.Essentially my thought process is that if my employer took it upon himself to pay In for what taxes I would owe at the end of the yearwhich is my understanding of how thatd work it still should not have been exactly 5 each time? Maybe Im missing something here as Im a college student just beginning to learn about uncle Sams greedy hand lol. Since Ill be filing this year, I am wondering if theres anything I could look for on my return or through the IRSturbo tax to find a way that all of this would make a sense. If anyone has the direct answer or at least a place to look when Im filing that would be great!  <response>: Lets assume its 2.33 plus tips, which is the minimum of what it would be under federal law if you get at least 30 in tips. If your tips less the 2.33hour doesnt equal minimum wage, he has to make up the rest in . the 2.13 is if you are under 20 and in the first 90 days on the job And hes supposed to be withholding taxes. So, lets say you work 12 hours a week. The minimum wage is 7.25. 7.25 x 24 174. You should be making at least that in wages and tips. Now, from his 2.33x24 55.92 he has to subtract your state and federal taxes as well as medicare and social security - based on your 174. So 7.65 13.31 4 for state income tax 6.96 Federal tax would be lets say 10 which is stupid. If you have very little income, youd file a W-4 and ask for nothing to be withheld, but whatever, lets just assume hes an officious idiot who just withheld stuff to be lazy call it 17. So, ball park - 37 withheld.Now, that means that the ball park minimum paycheck you should have gotten was 20. However, if he was estimating you were earning more in tips say 225 total of wages and tips, he may well have withheld more. So, if he was lazy and didnt keep track, but assumed everyone was hauling in exactly the right amount to make the math work then 5 is barely plausible. This, however, assumes he was actually paying all of that to those various agencies. You should have gotten a W-2 for your wages last year. That should have listed everything he sent to various agencies, and you should have used it to file your taxes.Find your W-2 from this guy and see what it says. If you cant find it, you can ask the IRS for a copy or transcript. And if the guy either didnt file a W-2 or he really is doing weird things with the wages, you can always sic the state on him by filing a workplace standards complaint. tl;dr - the math doesnt really work for 5 every other week, but its barely plausible with a lazy owner 