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Comment by Stratoscope | Hacker News Reader

> PTO is a non taxed benefit.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but income from PTO/vacation/sick leave is taxed the same as any other income.

If you make 140400 a year and are getting 2 weeks of vacation. You are making $2700 a week. If you took another week off of unpaid time off. You will lose $2700 for that year.

If they gave you an extra week of vacation. Your taxes wouldn’t change. If instead they gave you an extra $2700 in salary and you took a week off of unpaid time off, you have to pay 24% in Federal taxes on that income + 1.45% in Medicare (you are already over the social security maximum).

You would need to make $3621 more just to start breaking even ($2700/(1 - .24 - .0145)). But even then you are paying taxes on the extra 3621-2700. I’m sure there is some formula to break even but I would just ask for an extra $4000 and call it a day.

Assuming you CAN take unpaid time off, and not have that penalize you.

From my original post...

....and they will let you take unpaid time off....

What you're saying is that your net income after taxes is less than your gross income. Of course that is true, and the exact numbers will vary for every individual. Naturally you should always take the difference between gross and net into account in any financial decisions.

That wasn't what I was addressing, I was only commenting on this: "PTO is a non taxed benefit."

Someone could misinterpret that and think "I pay taxes on my salary, but PTO is not taxed."

But the money you're paid for PTO is salary. If you have accrued PTO and leave a company, when you get your final check you will find that the PTO payout is taxed as ordinary income, just like all of your other paychecks. And while you are at a company, the income you receive from any PTO days is also taxed as ordinary income, no different from a day that you actually work.

That was the only issue I wanted to clarify.

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