We're attempting to add direct deposit capabilities to our payroll, and I was discussing it with our employees (8 guys, all h.s. educated but not much if any more). While talking about their pay just being deposited each week and receiving a paper showing your 401k deduction and taxes paid each week instead, the boss mentioned the possibility of changing to paying biweekly. One guy says "well the paycheck will be bigger, so the government will take more taxes out, and I'll get less money". I explained how our payroll systems takes the amount of any one week check, figures out how much this would be over a year, and that same tax rate would be applied to a paycheck over two weeks. Nope, he's convinced a biweekly paycheck would mean less net pay because the government is evil. Oy.
I've pretty much given up arguing with people who reject such irrefutably simple math+logic arguments. There's something going on behind the face there that will drive you crazy if you try to reason with it.
Yea you can't really reason with the doesn't want to learn crowd.
Though I will mention there is actually an interesting corner case where switching to biweekly can cause an increase in taxes. Apparently this occurs once every five years or so? but it is possible to have 27 biweekly paychecks in a calendar year, instead of 26, since 52*7 = 364 =/= 365. This year is such an example - for those whose biweekly paychecks start 1/1 or 1/2. For those who start 1/1, they will get a 27th paycheck on 12/31. For those who start 1/2, they would get a paycheck on 1/1/2016, but some employers will issue a paycheck one day early in the case of a bank holiday. I'm paid biweekly and got my first paycheck on 1/2, so I may end up in this situation this year. I won't know until my employer publishes their pay schedule for the next fiscal year, which ends in June, not December.
Hence, once every 5(?) years, more of your income will be subject to your marginal rate, and hence, you will pay more in taxes.
But obviously, that's not what Apples's coworkers were talking about.