Federal Income Tax Calculator
Federal income tax on your taxable income, computed the way the IRS actually does it — bracket by bracket — with the full breakdown of what each rate taxed and your marginal and effective rates. New to the mechanism? The guide How Tax Brackets Actually Work walks through it with the same 2026 figures.
Federal tax on taxable income
Example: $68,900 taxable, single, 2026 → $9,870 (22% marginal).
How bracket math actually works
In the worked example — $68,900 of taxable income, single, 2026 — the tax is $9,870, assembled slice by slice: 10% on the $12,400 between $0 and $12,400 = $1,240 ; 12% on the $38,000 between $12,400 and $50,400 = $4,560 ; 22% on the $18,500 between $50,400 and $105,700 = $4,070 . The last slice sets the 22% marginal rate, while the blended result is an effective 14.33% of taxable income. Every figure is computed by the same tested engine as the calculator above.
The engine does exactly what that sentence describes. Starting from $0, it walks the 7 brackets for the chosen filing status and tax year in order. For each one it takes the dollars of taxable income that fall between the bracket's lower bound and its ceiling — never more than the ceiling, never anything below the lower bound — multiplies that slice by the bracket's rate, and adds the product to a running total. It stops at the first bracket whose lower bound your income does not reach. The bracket it stopped in is your marginal bracket, and the rate on that last slice is your marginal rate. Nothing in the loop ever reaches back to re-price a slice already counted, which is the whole reason a higher bracket cannot raise the tax on the income below its threshold. The rates run from 10% to 37% in 2026; what differs between single, married filing jointly, and head of household is the dollar range each rate owns, and only those ranges move from one tax year to the next.
From gross income to taxable income
Brackets never see a salary. The input above is taxable income — what remains after deductions — because that is the only figure the bracket schedule can act on. For a filer who takes the standard deduction, the path from wages to that figure is one subtraction. Take $130,000 of gross wages, single, 2026: the standard deduction for that status is $16,100, so taxable income is $113,900. Entered above, that figure produces the following breakdown, computed by the engine at build time:
| Bracket | Taxable-income range | Dollars in the slice | Tax from the slice |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10% | $0 – $12,400 | $12,400 | $1,240.00 |
| 12% | $12,400 – $50,400 | $38,000 | $4,560.00 |
| 22% | $50,400 – $105,700 | $55,300 | $12,166.00 |
| 24% | $105,700 – $201,775 | $8,200 | $1,968.00 |
| Total | $113,900 | $19,934.00 | |
The total is $19,934.00. The last slice — the $8,200 above $105,700 — sets a 24% marginal rate. Divided by taxable income, the tax is an effective 17.5%; divided by the $130,000 the filer actually earned, it is 15.33%. The calculator reports the first of those two rates, because taxable income is all it knows. If you arrived at your input from a salary, the second is the one that describes your year, and it is always the lower of the two because the deduction sits in its denominator.
The subtraction is floored at zero. $14,000 of gross wages for the same single filer is less than the $16,100 deduction, so taxable income is $0, no bracket line fires, and the federal income tax is $0. Payroll taxes on those wages are a separate computation, covered below. The Tax Bracket Calculator performs the deduction step for you from gross income, and the Standard Deduction Calculator covers the additional amounts for age and blindness that the base figures used here do not include.
Why the input is taxable income, not salary
Starting from taxable income makes the tool deduction-agnostic. Whether your deductions are the standard amount, an itemized total, a pre-tax retirement contribution that never reached your taxable wages, or some combination, the bracket arithmetic is identical once the taxable figure is known — so the calculator asks for that figure and does not try to reconstruct it. Two consequences follow. First, the tool does not check whether the taxable income you enter is right: it cannot know what you are entitled to deduct, and it does not model itemizing or any individual deduction. Second, the effective rate it reports is measured against taxable income, which makes it higher than the same tax measured against gross pay. Filing status still matters after the deduction is gone, because each status has its own bracket ranges. The calculator models single, married filing jointly, and head of household; married filing separately is not modeled by this site's ordinary-income tools, and the page says so rather than approximating it.
One gross figure, three filing statuses
Filing status changes two things at once: the size of the standard deduction and the width of every bracket. Here is $90,000 of gross income in 2026 under each status the calculator models, each row computed by the engine from the same data file:
| Filing status | Standard deduction | Taxable income | Federal income tax | Marginal rate | Effective rate (on taxable) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single | $16,100 | $73,900 | $10,970.00 | 22% | 14.84% |
| Married filing jointly | $32,200 | $57,800 | $6,440.00 | 12% | 11.14% |
| Head of household | $24,150 | $65,850 | $7,548.00 | 12% | 11.46% |
Same salary, three different bills. The single filer's $73,900 of taxable income reaches the 22% bracket. The joint filer's larger deduction leaves $57,800 taxable, and the wider joint ranges keep the last dollar in the 12% bracket — $6,440.00 of tax against the single filer's $10,970.00. Head of household sits between: a $24,150 deduction, and ceilings on its two lowest brackets that fall between the single and joint figures, for $7,548.00 of tax at a 12% marginal rate. Note what the comparison does not say: it does not say which status you may use. Eligibility for head of household or a joint return is a matter of your household facts, not of which bill is lower, and this tool assumes you have already determined it.
Marginal versus effective: reading the output
The result box shows three headline numbers above the bracket lines. The first is the tax itself. The second, the marginal rate, is the rate on the last slice — in the $68,900 example it is 22% — and it is the number that prices a change at the edge of your income. The third, the effective rate, divides the tax by taxable income: $9,870.00 on $68,900 is 14.33%. Under a progressive schedule the effective rate is always at or below the marginal rate, because every dollar below the last slice was taxed at a lower rate. Quoting the marginal rate as if it applied to the whole income is the most common misreading of this page; quoting the effective rate to estimate the cost of one more dollar is the second. Each bracket line beneath the headline figures reads as "rate on amount = tax": the amount is the slice of your taxable income inside that bracket, the tax is that slice times the rate, and the lines sum to the total.
Two computed illustrations of the marginal rate at work, both single, 2026. First, a deduction: reducing the example's taxable income by $1,000 lowers the tax from $9,870.00 to $9,650.00 — a saving of $220.00, which is the marginal rate applied to the deduction, not the deduction itself. Second, a threshold: taxable income of $104,000 lands in the 22% bracket, and $108,000 lands in the 24% bracket. The $4,000 of additional income costs $926.00 in tax: $1,700 of it stayed in the 22% bracket, and only the $2,300 above $105,700 was taxed at the new rate, for $552.00. The income below the threshold was not touched — moving into a higher bracket affects only the dollars above it, which is why "I don't want a raise, it'll put me in a higher bracket" is arithmetic confusion, not strategy. The guide How Tax Brackets Actually Work runs the same test on a salary with payroll taxes included and shows the take-home result.
What the calculator does not include
The number this page produces is the ordinary-income bracket tax on the taxable income you enter, and nothing else. That is the universal core of a federal return, but it is not a return. Left out, deliberately rather than approximated:
- Tax credits. Credits subtract from the tax after the bracket math, and eligibility depends on individual circumstances. None are computed here, so a credit-eligible filer's actual bill can be lower than this figure.
- Itemized deductions and other adjustments. The tool takes taxable income as given; what you may deduct to reach it is not evaluated.
- Preferential rates. Long-term capital gains are taxed under a separate rate schedule that stacks on top of ordinary income. The Capital Gains Tax Calculator handles that stacking from the same data file.
- The alternative minimum tax and other special regimes.
- Payroll taxes. Social Security and Medicare are levied on wages under their own rules and do not depend on the standard deduction. The Take-Home Pay Calculator adds them to this same bracket math to reach annual, monthly, and per-paycheck pay.
- State and local income taxes. This site models US federal tax only.
- Withholding. The tax computed here is a liability for the year. What an employer withholds from each paycheck follows your W-4 elections and the withholding tables, and the two are reconciled when you file.
Treat the result as a planning estimate of the federal core, not a filing figure. The disclaimer and methodology pages set out these boundaries in full.
Which tax year to choose
The year selector offers 2026 and 2025 and defaults to 2026. Choose the year the income belongs to — the calendar year in which it is earned — rather than the year the return is filed. Every year-dependent constant on this site, bracket ceilings and standard deductions included, lives in one data file keyed by tax year and maintained from the IRS revenue procedures listed on the methodology page; when a new year's figures are published, typically in the fall, that file gains an entry and every calculator updates together. The 2026 standard deductions already reflect the permanent increase enacted in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, so no separate adjustment belongs on top of the figures used here. For every 2026 range by filing status, rendered from the same file, see 2026 Federal Tax Brackets; the rest of the site's explainers are collected under Guides.
Frequently asked questions
What is "taxable income"?
Gross income minus adjustments and deductions — for most people, salary minus the standard deduction (and pre-tax contributions like a traditional 401(k)). This calculator starts from taxable income so it works with any deduction situation; if you want the standard deduction applied for you, use the Tax Bracket Calculator or Take-Home Pay Calculator.
Marginal versus effective rate — which matters?
Both, for different decisions. The marginal rate prices your next dollar (a raise, a Roth conversion, a deduction’s value). The effective rate — total tax divided by income — describes your overall burden. The marginal rate is always at least as high as the effective rate under a progressive system.
Does this include credits like the Child Tax Credit?
No. Credits subtract from the tax AFTER this bracket math, and eligibility rules are individual. The bracket computation here is the universal core; your actual bill can be lower once credits apply. It also excludes capital-gains rates, AMT, and other special regimes.
Does this include Social Security and Medicare?
No. Social Security and Medicare are payroll taxes levied on wages under their own rules — they do not depend on the standard deduction or the brackets — and they are not part of this figure. The Take-Home Pay Calculator adds them to this same bracket math to reach annual, monthly, and per-paycheck pay.
What if my income is below the standard deduction?
Then taxable income is zero and the bracket tax is zero: the subtraction floors at zero rather than going negative. Computed for 2026, a single filer with $14,000 of gross wages has $0 of taxable income after the $16,100 standard deduction and $0 of federal income tax. Payroll taxes on those wages are a separate matter.
Can I use this for married filing separately?
No. This site's ordinary-income tools model single, married filing jointly, and head of household only; married filing separately has its own bracket ranges and is not modeled here (it appears only in the capital-gains engine). Use a source that carries the separate-return schedule for that status.
Is the 2026 standard deduction already adjusted for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act?
Yes. The 2026 standard deductions in this site's data file — $16,100 single, $32,200 married filing jointly, $24,150 head of household — already include the Act's permanent increase, so no separate adjustment should be layered on top. The site's check of the statute and IRS guidance is an absence-of-evidence check as of 2026-08-18; confirm consequential figures against IRS.gov.
Are these the official IRS brackets?
The brackets and thresholds follow the IRS annual inflation adjustments for the supported years, and the methodology page documents them. Always confirm consequential figures against IRS.gov or a tax professional — thresholds are set each fall and this site is updated when they are.
Not tax advice: a planning estimate of the ordinary-income bracket math only — no credits, capital-gains rates, AMT, or state taxes. Your actual liability is determined when you file; consult a tax professional or IRS.gov. Values are processed locally in your browser and never transmitted. See the disclaimer and the methodology page.