Tax calculator
Federal income tax for 2025 and 2026, worked out in front of you. Type a salary and watch the ladder fill one bracket at a time. Nothing you type leaves this page.
Nothing in, nothing owed. The ladder is waiting.
| Rate | Bracket | Tax from this slice |
|---|---|---|
| Tax from the ladder | $0 | |
Each rung is one bracket. Your income fills them from the bottom. Only the part inside a rung is taxed at that rung's rate.
- Income tax after credits
- $0
- Social Security and Medicare
- $0
- Left after federal tax
- $0
TY2025 SINGLE EFFECTIVE 0.0%
The work
How the ladder works
A bracket is not a cliff. Being "in the 22% bracket" means only the dollars above the 12% rung's top are taxed at 22%; everything below keeps its lower rate. The ladder shows exactly that: each rung holds one bracket, the paper fill is the part of your taxable income sitting in it, and the figure on the right is the tax from that slice alone. Add the slices and you have your income tax before credits.
Your marginal rate is the rung your last dollar lands on. Your effective rate is the whole income tax divided by your whole income, which is always lower, sometimes by a lot. The readout at the top shows both.
What each line does
Pre-tax savings and half of any self-employment tax come off first to give adjusted gross income. Then the larger of the standard deduction and your itemised total comes off, plus the extra amounts for age or blindness and the $6,000 senior deduction that runs from 2025 through 2028. What is left is taxable income, and that is what goes up the ladder. The child tax credit and the credit for other dependents come off the tax; the child credit shrinks by $50 for every $1,000 of income over $200,000 ($400,000 on a joint return), and up to $1,700 per child can come back as a refund even when there is no tax to cut. Social Security stops at the wage base; Medicare never stops, and adds 0.9% above $200,000 ($250,000 joint, $125,000 separate). Self-employment tax is 15.3% of 92.35% of profit, with the Social Security half capped by the same wage base after your wages have used some of it.
What stays here
Everything on this page is plain JavaScript in your browser. The numbers you type are kept in this browser's storage and nowhere else; a shared link carries them in its address and nothing more. The only thing this page records is that an estimate was made, and for which year and filing status. Never an amount.