This rant isn’t quite as detailed as I intended it to be. Everyone in the Payroll Department is at some giant PayrollCon this week, except one very nice woman who explained to me that she could help me with "payroll" but not with "benefits."

Since what I want is someone to walk me through all the deductions on my check stub, and to tell me how they’ll change — and what my bottom line will be when I go back from 80% to regular full-time work — I thought she would be able to help me.

No, sadly.

The payroll people deal only with the tax bits. She would be happy to explain to me how imputed income works, but she can’t tell me why the amount of imputed income showing up on my current check is +4X what it was before I went out on FMLA leave.

I already know how imputed income works. It’s a fine notion, that companies have to count certain benefits as if they were income paid to their employees. That way you can’t sneakily give your executives houses and cars and housekeepers and tell your shareholders that they only earn a pittance.

Sometimes, it’s a problem. The amount of money my employer pays for Jill’s health insurance is taxed as income to me. If we could get legally married, they would stop taxing that as income to me. So my income is "X," but my taxable income is Y, which = "X+employer contribution to Jill’s health insurance." Incidently, the difference between X and Y is LARGE.

I think — although I need to talk to the benefits person (who works in another time zone) to make sure — I think that number is approximately $11,000 this year. But it is theoretically possible that part of that number has something to do with my having been on FMLA leave. I have to pay some of the benefit costs back, but maybe some of them are accounted for as imputed income.

If my math is right, and the FMLA isn’t making the numbers completely insane, a straight married person making my exact income would pay less in all federal and state taxes than I pay, because that person’s taxable income would be $11,000 less than mine.

Why I’m confused is because last year the difference between X and Y was much smaller, more like $3000. That’s still unfair, but a lot less dramatic.

Also theoretically, Congress could fix this problem. Here’s more information about the bill that would do that, from HRC.

BTW, I guest blogged this evening over at Accident of Hope, while Trista is on vacation. I tell an embarassing story about myself, so if you don’t want to read one of those, stay here. Otherwise, you should know that Trista is a very interesting blogger, with an adorable little girl named Julia. If you haven’t yet, go visit.