What actually hits your account.
Your salary is not your paycheck. See where each dollar goes between gross pay and your bank account, and exactly how the tax brackets apply to you.
Paycheck and take-home pay calculator
Where your pay goes
Top bracket 0%How it's calculated
Your federal brackets
| Rate | Bracket | Your income in it | Tax |
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Where the money actually goes
The gap between a salary and a paycheck is not one deduction, it is five, and they are calculated on different amounts in a specific order. The numbers below are the ones this page computes for the default $75,000 single filer, and every one of them can be traced by hand.
Your marginal rate is not your tax rate
This is the most expensive misunderstanding in personal finance. The default salary here sits in the 22% bracket, but the actual tax paid is $6,284 on $75,000, an effective federal rate of about 8%. Counting every tax, including Social Security, Medicare and a 5% state rate, the total is $15,319, or 20.4% of gross.
Brackets are marginal, meaning each rate applies only to the income inside that band. The first $12,400 is taxed at 10% no matter how much you earn on top of it. This is why a raise can never leave you with less money. Only the dollars above the threshold are taxed at the higher rate, and the bracket table on this page shows exactly how much income is sitting in each band.
Not every pre-tax deduction is pre-tax for everything
A traditional 401(k) comes out before income tax, so the $4,500 contributed here reduces what federal and state tax are calculated on. It does not reduce Social Security or Medicare, which are charged on your wages before retirement contributions come out. That surprises people who expect a 401(k) to shrink every line.
Health premiums and HSA contributions behave differently. Because they run through a Section 125 plan, they come out before income tax and before payroll tax. You can watch this happen: Social Security here is $4,538, which is 6.2% of $73,200, the salary after the $1,800 health premium but before the $4,500 retirement contribution.
Social Security stops. Medicare does not.
Social Security is charged at 6.2% but only up to an annual wage base, so high earners stop paying it partway through the year and see their take-home rise. Medicare has no ceiling. It runs at 1.45% on every dollar, plus an additional 0.9% above a threshold that is not adjusted for inflation and so catches more people each year.
Both are matched by your employer, so the real payroll tax on your wages is double the line you see. Economists generally treat that employer half as coming out of wages too, since it is a cost of employing you either way.
Withholding is a forecast, not a bill
This calculator works out the tax for a full year and divides it evenly across pay periods. Your employer does something similar but based on the elections on your W-4, which is why your real stub will not match to the dollar. A refund means the forecast was too high and you lent the money interest-free. A bill in April means it was too low.
The mismatch is worst when your income is uneven. Bonuses are often withheld at a flat supplemental rate that has nothing to do with your actual bracket, and commission or overtime can make a single period look like a much higher annual salary than you will really earn.
What this calculator leaves out
State tax is a single flat rate here. Real state systems have their own brackets, their own deductions and, in several states, no wage income tax at all, and some cities add a local tax on top. Treat the state line as a rough placeholder rather than a figure to plan around.
It also assumes the standard deduction, no dependents and no credits. Credits in particular can dominate the result at lower incomes, because they subtract from the tax itself rather than from the income, and the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit can both be worth more than the entire federal bill computed here.
Unfamiliar term? The course glossary defines the fifty this site actually uses, in the sense this site uses them.
Common questions
Why is my paycheck smaller than my salary divided by the number of pay periods?
Between gross pay and your bank account sit federal income tax, Social Security at 6.2 percent, Medicare at 1.45 percent, any state income tax, and pre-tax deductions such as a 401(k) and health premiums. Together these commonly take 25 to 35 percent of gross pay.
Does a 401(k) contribution lower my taxes?
A traditional 401(k) lowers federal and state income tax, because the money comes out before income tax is calculated. It does not lower Social Security or Medicare, which are based on gross wages. HSA, FSA, and pre-tax health premiums generally reduce all three.
What is the difference between my marginal and effective tax rate?
Your marginal rate is the rate applied to your last dollar of income. Your effective rate is total tax divided by total income. The effective rate is always the lower of the two, because the earlier brackets are taxed at lower rates.
Why does my real paycheck differ from this estimate?
Actual withholding depends on the elections on your W-4, your state and local rules, and employer specific benefits. This calculator estimates annual tax and spreads it evenly across pay periods.
How this works: federal income tax is applied progressively, so only the income inside each bracket is taxed at that bracket's rate. Social Security is 6.2% up to the annual wage base and Medicare is 1.45% on all wages, with an extra 0.9% on high earners. A traditional 401(k) lowers your income tax but not Social Security or Medicare, while HSA, FSA, and health premiums generally lower both. Figures use 2026 federal amounts and a flat state estimate, so your real paycheck will differ based on your W-4, state rules, local taxes, and other withholding. For education only; this is not tax advice.