Удержанный налог — это НДФЛ.

Удержанный means withheld, deducted, or kept back.

It comes from the verb удержать / удерживать, which can mean to withhold, to deduct, to hold back, depending on context.

Here it is a past passive participle, so удержанный налог literally means the tax that has been withheld.

In payroll or tax contexts, English speakers will often translate it as withheld tax or tax withheld.

Because it is being used like an adjective modifying налог.

• налог is masculine singular
• so the participle also takes a masculine singular nominative form:
  • удержанный налог

This is similar to how a regular adjective agrees with a noun in:

• gender
• number
• case

So grammatically, удержанный behaves like an adjective, even though it comes from a verb.

Both parts are in the nominative case.

• удержанный налог = nominative singular
• НДФЛ = also functioning as nominative here

This is because the sentence is basically an identification statement:

• Withheld tax = personal income tax

Russian often uses the nominative on both sides in this kind of sentence.

The dash is standard in Russian when one thing is being identified as another, especially in sentences without an explicit verb like is.

Russian often omits the present-tense verb to be. So instead of a word for is, you often get structure like:

• X — это Y

So the dash helps show the link between the two parts.

In this sentence, the dash marks the break between:

• the topic: удержанный налог
• the explanation/identification: это НДФЛ

Here это does not really mean literal this in the usual demonstrative sense. In sentences like this, это often works more like is / is what we call / is in fact.

So:

• Удержанный налог — это НДФЛ

means something like:

• The withheld tax is NDFL
• The withheld tax is personal income tax
• What is being withheld is NDFL

In this kind of structure, это helps make the sentence sound explanatory or definitional.

Yes, you can say:

• Удержанный налог — НДФЛ.

That is grammatically possible, but it sounds a bit more compressed or formal.

Using это makes it feel more natural as an explanation or definition:

• Удержанный налог — это НДФЛ.

So both are possible, but это is very common when identifying or explaining something.

НДФЛ stands for:

налог на доходы физических лиц

That is the standard Russian term for personal income tax.

Word by word:

• налог = tax
• на доходы = on income
• физических лиц = of natural persons / individuals

So in practical English, it is usually translated as personal income tax.

It is usually pronounced letter by letter:

• эн-дэ-эф-эл

Russian speakers treat it as an initialism, not as a normal word.

So if you read the full sentence aloud, it would sound roughly like:

• удержАнный налОг — это эн-дэ-эф-Эл

Main stresses:

• удержАнный
• налОг

Yes, especially in administrative, tax, payroll, and accounting contexts.

It sounds formal and bureaucratic, which is normal for this kind of topic.

Depending on context, Russians might also say things like:

• удержанный НДФЛ = the withheld personal income tax
• сумма удержанного налога = the amount of tax withheld

So the phrase is natural, but it belongs more to official or financial language than everyday casual conversation.

Not always exactly, but in this context they are close.

Possible translations of удержанный include:

• withheld
• deducted
• retained

In payroll/tax language, withheld is often the best English equivalent, because it refers to money taken out before payment.

So:

• удержанный налог = withheld tax

But in some other contexts, удержать can mean to keep back, to retain, or to hold.

In the present tense, Russian normally omits the verb to be.

So where English says:

• The withheld tax is NDFL

Russian often says literally:

• Withheld tax — this NDFL

That is just normal Russian structure. The idea of is is understood without needing a separate present-tense verb.

In past or future tense, however, Russian does use forms of быть:

• Удержанный налог был НДФЛ would mean The withheld tax was NDFL
  though in real usage that exact sentence may sound context-dependent.

Yes, but the basic order here is the most straightforward for a definition or explanation.

Normal version:

• Удержанный налог — это НДФЛ.

If you change the order, the emphasis can change:

• НДФЛ — это удержанный налог.

That would mean:

• NDFL is the withheld tax

This is also grammatical, but now НДФЛ is the topic being defined.

So Russian word order is flexible, but the original version presents удержанный налог first as the thing being explained.

Both, in a way.

Historically and grammatically, it is a participle, which is a verb-derived form. But in the sentence, it behaves like an adjective because it describes налог and agrees with it.

So for a learner, the most useful way to think about it is:

• form: past passive participle
• job in the sentence: adjective-like modifier

That is why it looks and acts much like a normal adjective.