The W-4 withholding worksheet
Worksheet 1A for both of Northwind's employees: $917 and $133 a month, line by line.
Publication 15-T's Worksheet 1A is what payroll software runs for every employee, every payday. It reads the W-4's five steps in a fixed order, and every line can be checked by hand.
Wrong
Change Priya's withholding because her take-home looks low.
Right
Apply the W-4 exactly as signed; if there's none, withhold as single with no adjustments.
The employer applies the W-4 as given. Advising an employee how to fill it in isn't the employer's job, and the IRS's estimator exists for that.
Where this lesson's rules come from
The sources behind this lesson's requirements, by kind. Anything marked as a convention is ours, not the rule-maker's.
- IRS guidance
- IRS Pub. 15-T (2026), Introduction — Rounding (opens in a new tab)Federal income tax withholding methods — Worksheet 1A and the 2026 percentage method tablesPDF · Free to read
- Official form
- Form W-4 (2026) (opens in a new tab)Form W-4, Employee's Withholding CertificatePDF · Free to read
The words this page teaches
Each links to its glossary definition, which also names the authority behind it and the components that render it.
- Federal income tax withholdingThe income tax an employer withholds from each paycheck, worked out from the employee's Form W-4 by a method in IRS Pub. 15-T — in an automated payroll, the percentage method and Worksheet 1A — and deposited with FICA
- Form W-4The form a new employee gives the employer to set federal income tax withholding — filing status, the two-jobs checkbox, credits, other income, deductions and extra withholding. Kept by the employer, not sent to the IRS unless it asks. A state with an income tax may use its own certificate, such as California's DE 4