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How Much Tax Should I Pay?
Turn a gross salary into an estimated federal tax bill, effective rate, and real take-home pay — 2024 or 2025 brackets, W-2 or 1099, in one screen.
Your tax inputs
Results recalculate on every keystroke. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Enter your annual income to begin.
Take-home summary
Estimate only: federal brackets, payroll tax and an optional flat state rate. Excludes credits, AMT, itemized deductions, local taxes and the 0.9% additional Medicare surtax. Not tax advice.
Bracket-by-bracket breakdown
Every row is shown, so the headline number is auditable.
Show bracket table
| Rate | Income taxed in this bracket | Tax |
|---|
How this estimate works
Gross annual pay, filing status, tax year, and whether you are a W-2 employee or self-employed.
Taxable income is walked up the published marginal brackets; each row shows the slice taxed and the tax it produced.
Federal tax plus payroll tax (and any flat state rate you add) are subtracted to give annual, monthly and biweekly net pay.
What is modeled — and what is not
- Federal marginal brackets for 2024 and 2025
- The standard deduction for all four filing statuses
- FICA at 7.65% (6.2% capped at the Social Security wage base)
- Self-employment tax at 15.3% on 92.35% of profit, with the deductible half removed first
- An optional flat state rate you control
- Credits (child, earned income, education, saver's)
- AMT, NIIT and the 0.9% additional Medicare surtax
- Itemized deductions and deductions above the line other than the SE-tax half
- Graduated state tax, county and city tax
- Withholding, refunds and filing mechanics
This is an educational estimate built from published IRS bracket tables, not tax advice and not a filing tool.
FAQ
Is my income or salary data sent anywhere?
No. Every calculation runs in your browser with inline JavaScript — there are no network calls, no accounts and no stored inputs.
What is the difference between W-2 and 1099 in this calculator?
A W-2 employee pays 7.65% FICA (6.2% Social Security up to the annual wage base plus 1.45% Medicare). A 1099 worker pays both halves — 15.3% — on 92.35% of profit, and the deductible half is subtracted from income before federal brackets are applied.
Why is my effective rate lower than my bracket?
Brackets are marginal: only the income above each threshold is taxed at the higher rate. Taxable income is also reduced by the standard deduction and any pre-tax deductions you enter, so the effective rate on gross pay is usually much lower than the top bracket.
How should I use the state tax field?
Enter one flat rate that roughly matches your state's effective rate (many states have no income tax — leave it at 0). It is applied to income after pre-tax deductions and never applied to the federal side.
Why does a raise sometimes look like it costs money?
It never does here: total tax rises by less than the raise in every bracket, and the effective rate only ever creeps up. Raise the income field and watch the take-home line grow as well.