How we calculate

The one rule

A number goes on this site only once we have read it in a document published by the government that sets it. That means the IRS, the Social Security Administration, a state revenue department, a state labor department, or the statute itself. We do not use another calculator's figures, tax-news summaries or search-engine answers, even when they are probably right.

That rule costs us states. 4 states are missing from the site right now (Utah, Vermont, Hawaii, Arkansas) because their 2026 figures have not been published in a form we can cite, or because two of the state's own documents disagree. Those states will appear once the documents settle the question. Until then we leave them out rather than publish a guess.

Behind the 46 states that are published sit 109 official documents. Every state page lists the ones it relies on, which figure each document establishes, and a link to it.

What happens to a salary, in order

The calculator works out the tax owed on a year of wages, then divides it into paychecks. For a single filer in 2026:

1. Annual pay. A salary is used as typed. An hourly rate is multiplied by the hours worked each week (default 40) and by 52 weeks.
2. Federal income tax. The 2026 standard deduction, $16,100 single or $32,200 married filing jointly, comes off first. Seven brackets from 10% to 37% are applied to what is left.
3. Social Security at 6.2% of wages up to $184,500, and nothing above that.
4. Medicare at 1.45% of all wages, plus the Additional Medicare Tax of 0.9% on wages above $200,000 ($250,000 jointly).
5. State income tax, following the state's own rules. That means its own standard deduction or exemptions (or the federal deduction, in states that adopt it), its own brackets, and its own credits. Where a state does something unusual, the engine does it too: Alabama and Oregon let you subtract federal income tax, Connecticut claws back its lower brackets from higher earners, and Wisconsin, Maine and New Mexico withdraw allowances gradually as income rises. Each quirk is written into that state's data with a note citing the document it came from.
6. State payroll contributions. These are deductions other than income tax: disability insurance, paid family leave, a transit tax, long-term care.14 of the 46 published states charge one, and each is applied at its official rate up to its official wage cap.
7. Take-home pay is what remains. For a paycheck figure, the annual amounts are divided by the number of paydays: every week (52), every two weeks (26), twice a month (24), every month (12). Cents are allocated so that the paychecks add up to the annual figure exactly, rather than being a cent out after rounding.

Every result has a "show the working" section that goes through the same steps with your numbers: which bracket taxed which slice of income, what each deduction removed, and what each payroll contribution was charged on.

The 2026 federal figures

From the IRS's annual inflation adjustments for 2026(Rev. Proc. 2025-32) and the Social Security Administration's contribution and benefit base.

Tax owed, not tax withheld

The calculator gives the tax you owe on the year's wages. Your employerwithholds using the IRS's and the state's withholding tables, which are designed to get close to that figure but work one paycheck at a time. That means a single paycheck can differ from ours by a few dollars. If your pay changes during the year, the gap can be larger. Any difference is settled when you file your return, and that return is what our figures are built to match.

It is also why we are careful about which documents we trust for the year. A state's withholding guide can be printed before the year's figures are final. Arkansas's withholding formula headed "Tax Year 2026" in fact carries the 2025 brackets, and the same lag shows up in its 2024 edition. So before we accept a figure for 2026, we check it against a worked example or a second document from the same department.

What the calculators assume

• Wages are the only income. Interest, dividends, capital gains, business and rental income are not included.
• Single or married filing jointly, taking the standard deduction. Head of household and itemized deductions are not modeled.
• No dependents, so no child tax credit or dependent exemptions.
• No pre-tax deductions: no 401(k), 403(b), HSA or health insurance premiums. We have not simply subtracted them from gross, because states disagree about them. Pennsylvania taxes 401(k) contributions that the IRS does not, and New Jersey treats a 403(b) differently from a 401(k). They will be added state by state, each with its source.
• You live and work in the same state for the whole year.

Local income taxes

The state calculators cover statewide taxes. Some places also tax income at city or county level, and those are not included in the state figures. New York City is the exception: its resident tax has a calculator of its own, built on the New York figures. The rest are not yet covered. The largest are Yonkers; Maryland's county income tax, which every county charges; Indiana's county taxes; municipal income tax in most Ohio cities; Pennsylvania's local earned income tax; city income taxes in about two dozen Michigan cities, Detroit the largest; Kentucky's occupational license fees; Wilmington, Delaware; and the Kansas City and St. Louis earnings taxes.

Each state page states plainly whether a local tax applies there. We do this so that a figure for Baltimore or Philadelphia does not look complete when it is not.

When figures change

Federal figures for a new year are usually published in October or November, and states follow between November and January. Some states publish later still. A state's figures change on this site when that state's own documents are out. We do not change them early on the strength of a news report or a bill that has not become law.

Every change that affects a result is recorded in the tax changes log: what changed, when it takes effect, and the official notice it came from.

When we get something wrong

It happens, and we would rather hear about it. If a figure disagrees with an official document or with your own paycheck, tell us which state, which salary and which line. We check the report against the source document. If we were wrong, we fix it, and if the error changed a result, we record the correction in the tax changes log.