Last checked 2026-11-07. Tax rates and wage limits change every year — always confirm on the official pages linked below.
Put your own salary into the calculator on this page — gross pay, filing status, state and pay frequency — and the rest of this page will make more sense.
1. Federal income tax. Withheld by your employer according to the Form W-4 you filled in (IRS). It is not a flat percentage: it is worked out in brackets on your taxable income — your salary minus the standard deduction.
For the 2026 tax year the standard deduction is $16,100 for a single filer and $32,200 for a married couple filing jointly (IRS, Rev. Proc. 2025-32).
2. Social Security — 6.2%. On wages up to a ceiling. For 2026 that ceiling is $184,500 (SSA).
3. Medicare — 1.45%. No ceiling. Above $200,000 of wages (higher for married couples filing jointly) an extra 0.9% applies (IRS).
4. State income tax. As of January 1, 2026, eight states levy no individual income tax at all: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming. Washington is usually counted separately, because it taxes capital gains income but not wages (Tax Foundation). In the other 42 states this is the fourth deduction — the calculator fills it in where your state is supported, and points you to the state's own page where it is not.
Single filer, 2026 tax year, standard deduction, no state income tax:
| Gross salary | Federal income tax | Social Security + Medicare | Take-home |
|---|---|---|---|
| $40,000 | $2,620 | $3,060 | $34,320 |
| $60,000 | $5,020 | $4,590 | $50,390 |
| $100,000 | $13,170 | $7,650 | $79,180 |
Read across the middle row and the shape of the problem appears: about $9,610 of a $60,000 salary never reaches the bank account. Just over half of that — $5,020 — is federal income tax; the other $4,590 is Social Security and Medicare.
One practical wrinkle before you compare the monthly figure with your bank statement: if you are paid every two weeks, that is 26 paychecks a year, not 24. The monthly number above is a twelfth of the year, so it will not match a single paycheck, and twice a year a month will contain three paydays instead of two.
The bracket is the rate applied to your last dollar, not to all of them. Only the income above each threshold is taxed at that threshold's rate.
At $60,000, the standard deduction takes $16,100 off the top, leaving $43,900 of taxable income. The first $12,400 of that is taxed at 10%, and the remaining $31,500 at 12%. The result is $5,020 — an effective federal rate of about 8.4%, even though the person is "in the 12% bracket."
This matters when you are negotiating a salary. An extra $5,000 is still taxed at 12% until your taxable income passes $50,400; only the dollars above that line are taxed at 22%. Social Security and Medicare take their fixed share regardless.
Social Security tax stops at the wage base. For 2026 that is $184,500 (SSA, 2026 COLA fact sheet); for 2027 it is $192,300 (SSA).
Below the ceiling, the 6.2% applies to every dollar. Above it, that line disappears from your pay stub for the rest of the year — which is why high earners sometimes see their take-home jump in the fall and mistake it for a raise.
On November 5, 2026 the IRS published the 2027 figures: a standard deduction of $16,600 for single filers and $33,200 for married filing jointly, with brackets starting at $12,800, $52,025 and $109,125 (IRS, Rev. Proc. 2026-35). They take effect on January 1, 2027 — so they are not what is being withheld from a paycheck today. What is being withheld today is the 2026 table.
Why that matters to you: when you compare two take-home numbers, check which year each one used. A 2027 deduction paired with a 2026 bracket gives an answer that is wrong for both years, and it is the first thing to rule out when a figure looks a few hundred dollars off.
If you want the number your employer actually uses, the IRS publishes a withholding estimator that produces the Form W-4 to hand in (IRS). It is worth running once a year — the IRS suggests checking every January.
The calculator is at the top of this page — put your own gross pay into it before you name a number in an interview.
Updated 2026-11-07 · Sources retrieved 2026-11-07. Tax year used in the examples: 2026.
This is a general calculation, not tax, legal or financial advice. It uses the standard deduction, a single filer with no dependents and no state income tax, and it ignores retirement contributions, health premiums, credits and local taxes. Your own withholding depends on the Form W-4 you filed. Confirm anything that matters with the IRS or a qualified tax professional.
We check every report against the official source and update the page. See how on our Corrections.
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