Answers to your questions:
- Salaries paid to an owner of an S corporation is treated as any other employee wage and is deductible. The SE tax is only paid on the wage to the owner, once again just like any other employee; paid 1/2 by the employer (S corp) and 1/2 by the employee.
- As noted in the first response, wages paid to an owner of an S corp are deductible.
- Yes wages paid to an owner are treated as wages paid to any other employee and are subject to the same payroll taxes.
- Yes there is a benefit to incorporating and electing S corporation status. I did not run the numbers to determine what this benefit would be.
*A reminder that posts in a forum such as this do not constitute tax advice.
Also keep in mind the date of replies, as tax law changes.
