Payroll Taxes. You must pay 6 percent of each employee's first $7,000 in income to the federal government to cover unemployment insurance. The percentage you must pay to the state varies depending on where your business is located, as does the amount of employee pay you must use to calculate the total amount you owe.ay your federal FUTA taxes quarterly by multiplying the quarterly wages of your employees by .06 as long as the wages of each employee you're calculating haven't gone over $7,000.