Part 2: Your First Paycheck

Now we move on from the top part to the sections about taxes. As they say, death and taxes, and we are here to talk about the taxes part.  The next three rows of boxes are about the taxes that are taken out of your check.  The first of those rows is labeled FED TAXES and are some of the Federal Taxes withheld.  Are the taxes being withheld as Married/Single/Head of Household?  Multiple jobs?  Number of dependants? All of these will determine how much money is kept by the federal government.

The next row is labeled FICA TAXES, these are Social Security Taxes, Medicare Taxes, and State Taxes. 

The third row is labeled PAY DATA.  These are the special allotments such as BAH/BAS/BAQ.  The zip code that is used for the BAQ determination rate, is labeled VHA Zip.

These are the major pieces you need to know about the tax section on the LES.  This is the website you want to look at for an in depth breakdown of what each box means. AirForce_reading_your_LES.pdf.

Next time, I will talk about retirement contributions that are the last four rows on the LES!