🔤 Glossary
The vocabulary of a legal situation, in plain language, cited to the statute wherever one defines the term. Terms appear as hover cards across the site's calculators too.
Additional Medicare tax
An extra withholding on high wages that the employer must deduct and remit but does not match.
Annual report
The periodic filing that keeps a business entity in good standing with the state that formed it.
Break-even point
The sales volume or revenue at which total costs are exactly covered and profit is zero.
Cash break-even
The volume at which cash coming in covers cash going out, which is not the same as accounting break-even.
Contribution margin
The price of one unit minus the costs that exist only because that unit was sold.
Cost per productive hour
Total annual employment cost divided by the hours actually worked, rather than the hours contracted.
Employer payroll taxes
The four taxes an employer owes on wages: Social Security, Medicare, federal unemployment, and state unemployment.
Experience rate
The state unemployment tax rate assigned to an established employer based on its own history of unemployment claims.
Foreign qualification
Registering an entity formed in one state to do business in another.
Franchise tax
A recurring state charge for the privilege of operating an entity there, separate from income tax.
FUTA tax
The federal unemployment tax, charged on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages at a rate reduced by a credit for state payments.
Labor burden
Everything an employer pays for a worker on top of the wage itself, usually expressed as a percentage of that wage.
Margin
Profit expressed as a share of the selling price.
Margin of safety
How far current or expected sales sit above the break-even point, as a percentage.
Markup
Profit expressed as a share of the cost rather than of the price.
Registered agent
The person or company designated to receive legal and state notices on behalf of a business entity.
SUTA tax
State unemployment tax — each state's own contribution rate on its own taxable wage base, paid by the employer.
Taxable wage base
The maximum amount of one worker's yearly wages that a given payroll tax applies to.