Should Barton employ Mike's wife Elaine for $50,000 rather than increase Mike's sal-ary? Take into consideration payroll taxes as well as federal income taxes. Note, that Elaine's salary would be well below the Social Security cap, so that she and the corpo-ration each would incur the full amount of payroll taxes with the corporate portion being deductible. Both Elaine's and the corporation's portion is 7.65%