I keep forgetting that most people don’t actually know what I’m talking about when I say “lift the cap on FICA” and I should explain.

If you actually work for a living you pay what are often called “withholding taxes” which will appear on your W-2 form as FICA. The Federal Insurance Contributions Act [FICA] is one of the two laws that govern the collection of taxes to fund the Social Security insurance program and the Medicare insurance program. If you are self-employed, your contributions are covered by the Self-Employment Contributions Act, but it covers the same taxes.

The tax rate for Social Security is 12.4%, and for Medicare, it’s 2.9%, but the cost is split equally between the employer and employee, so you only see 7.65% deducted from your wages. The Medicare rate applies to 100% of your wages, from the first dollar you are paid. The Social Security rate is capped, and you only pay the 6.2% on the first $102,000 that you make in a year.

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Update: He finally showed up and promptly messed up by talking. This is why reading people their rights doesn’t make a big difference, they’ll talk anyway. The LPT didn’t issue a new article, they just updated it.

The Local Puppy Trainer reports the shocking news, the coach didn’t turn himself in

NICEVILLE – Lawmen believe they’ve given the Rocky Bayou Christian Academy coach accused of sexual misconduct more than ample time to turn himself in.

Now, police officers, deputies and even the U.S. Marshal service are on the lookout for the 28-year-old who’d arranged to turn himself in at 10 a.m. Monday. James Laird Seegars, Jr is accused of lewd and lascivious conduct with a 14-year-old and has also been entered into the National Crime Information Center database.

“He knew this was coming. It was not a secret,” said Niceville Police Department Lt. Randy Sallee.

Seegars had told investigators he was only “a phone call away” whenever they needed him to surrender, Sallee recalled. But when lawmen called Seegars, they found he was in Augusta, Ga.

“That’s not a phone call away,” Sallee said.

The accused coach told police he’d come in on his own Monday morning, but that didn’t happen.

Wow, who could have imagined that a guy facing major prison time over a sex charge with a minor wouldn’t just come in to face the music. The guy was a Christian who went to church every Sunday, and everything.

The CBC reports on a new fire North of Seattle: Lillooet fire burning uncontrolled

A 1,000-hectare wildfire burning out of control within sight of Lillooet in the southwest of B.C. has forced the evacuation of two homes.

Fire officials said there are 13 helicopters and 57 firefighters working to extinguish the Mount McLean fire northeast of Seton Lake, but the blaze was completely uncontained on Monday morning.

The fire is burning on the mountain slopes about 1½ kilometres directly above the town of Lillooet, with the most active fire front approximately four kilometres northwest of the town.

Squamish-Lillooet Regional District ordered two homes in the area evacuated on Sunday, and fire officials expect to release more information later Monday morning.

The fire started on Wednesday with a lightning strike, and additional lightning strikes over the past few days complicated efforts to put it out.

The CBC Fire Map shows five uncontrolled fires burning in British Columbia, and five more fires that have been declared under control. The uncontrolled fires are in the middle of Vancouver Island, this fire [Mount McLean], the Terrace Mountain fire, the Pleasant Creek fire, and in the North of the province, the Liard River fire that has been burning since June 1.

The fires are causing concerns about air quality and water availability in the province. Recent storms have had more lightning than rain, and caused the spike in fires.

CNN has more actual facts about the incident in Cambridge:

(CNN) — The woman who made the 911 call that led to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. never referred to black suspects when she called authorities for what she thought was a potential break-in.

Police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, released the 911 phone call Monday. In the call, Lucia Whalen reports seeing “two larger men, one looked kind of Hispanic, but I’m not really sure, and the other one entered, and I didn’t see what he looked like at all.”

“I just saw it from a distance, and this older woman was worried, thinking somebody’s breaking in someone’s house and they’ve been barging in,” Whalen says. “She interrupted me, and that’s when I noticed. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all, to be honest with you. So I was just calling because she was a concerned neighbor, I guess.”

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