a. What is the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA)? What are the funds used for? b. How do you calculate Social Security Tax? What are the funds used for? c. How do you calculate Medicare Tax ? What are the funds used for? d. Describe how these calculations represent functions. e. Create equations to calculate both the Social Security tax and the Medicare tax.

a. The Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) is a United States federal law that mandates a payroll tax on the earnings of employees and self-employed individuals. The funds collected under FICA are used to provide benefits for retired or disabled individuals, as well as for survivors of deceased workers.<br /><br />b. Social Security Tax is calculated as a percentage of an employee's gross wages, up to a certain limit. The funds collected under Social Security Tax are used to provide benefits for retired or disabled individuals, as well as for survivors of deceased workers.<br /><br />c. Medicare Tax is also calculated as a percentage of an employee's gross wages, but there is no wage limit for this tax. The funds collected under Medicare Tax are used to provide healthcare coverage for individuals aged 65 and older, as well as for certain younger individuals with disabilities or end-stage renal disease.<br /><br />d. These calculations represent functions because they take in a specific input (gross wages) and produce a specific output (tax amount). The tax rates and wage limits used in these calculations are fixed, which means that the output will always be the same for a given input.<br /><br />e. The equations to calculate the Social Security tax and the Medicare tax are as follows:<br /><br />Social Security Tax = 0.062 * gross wages (up to the wage limit)<br /><br />Medicare Tax = 0.0145 * gross wages (no wage limit)