Income Tax Calculator

Taxable income comes first

Pre-tax deductions come off the top of gross income: 401(k) or 403(b) contributions, HSA and FSA contributions, and the share of health premiums payroll takes before tax. What remains is adjusted gross income, and that is the figure the rest of the calculation works from.

The larger of the standard deduction and your itemized deductions is then subtracted, and the page names which one it used. Only what survives both steps is taxable income, and only taxable income is fed through the brackets. Deductions cannot push taxable income below zero, and a gross income of zero stops the page with a prompt rather than producing a breakdown of nothing.

How the brackets work

Each bracket is charged only on the income inside it. A single filer with $85,000 of gross income and $6,000 of pre-tax deductions pays 10% on the first band of taxable income, 12% on the next and 22% on the remainder, so the last dollar sits in the 22% band while the average rate stays well below it.

Credits work differently: they are subtracted from the tax itself, so a $2,000 credit is worth $2,000 whatever bracket it lands in, and the tax stops at zero rather than going negative. When credits exceed the tax before them, a note names the unused amount and says that it is non-refundable here - most credits can take tax to zero, not create a payment.

FICA is charged on gross wages

Payroll tax is charged on gross wages, before the standard deduction and before most deductions, which is why it barely moves when taxable income falls. Social Security takes 6.2% up to the $184,500 wage base for 2026, Medicare takes 1.45% with no cap, and Additional Medicare tax of 0.9% starts above $200,000 single or $250,000 joint.

The pre-tax field mixes money that is treated differently: 401(k) contributions still count for FICA, while HSA and premium amounts normally do not, and this page charges FICA on the whole gross figure. The payroll line therefore runs slightly high for those amounts - a stated limitation rather than a hidden adjustment.

State tax is a separate question

State income tax is a flat percentage of adjusted gross income, because one rate is enough for a comparison and most states that levy income tax have graduated scales and deductions of their own. Nine states charge no income tax at all, and a state rate of zero simply removes the line from the results.

Local income tax, city wage tax and school district tax are not modeled. The effective rate on the hero covers every tax on the page against gross income, take-home pay floors at zero instead of turning negative, and the bar can never claim more than 100% of gross pay.

Where the standard deduction stops being the answer

The page takes the larger of the standard deduction and your itemized total, which makes the standard figure a floor rather than a prize you have to earn your way out of. For 2026 that floor is $16,100 for a single filer and $32,200 on a joint return; itemizing only changes the result once documented mortgage interest, state taxes and charitable gifts add up to more than that.

The counterexample is the common one: a household with a $300,000 mortgage and high property taxes itemizes without effort, while a renter on the same income takes the standard deduction and pays tax on the difference. Two people on identical salaries can owe different federal tax simply because one of them holds a document the other does not, and the field on this page is what lets you price that instead of guessing.

Itemizing is not free either: it usually means trading the standard amount for a larger one, and the gap between the two is far smaller than the itemized total suggests. That is why the page names which it used - itemized $34,000 against a $32,200 standard deduction is an $1,800 difference in the tax base, not $34,000 of savings.