Why was Medicare deducted from my ISO exercise?

September 18, 2006

Date:   Sat, 08 Apr 2006
From:   Dennis

On the exercise of ISOs that resulted in W-2 income of $150,000, the Medicare income was over $1 million and Medicare tax was paid on that amount. Why is that?

Answer

Date:   01 May 2006

Hello Dennis,

Because someone made a mistake. There is no Medicare income from the exercise of an ISO. Go tell your payroll department to fix it, issue a corrected W-2 and refund the excess Medicare tax.

Good luck!

Mike Gray

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