Methodology: how our 2026 calculators work

Tax year 2026 • last verified 2026-10-31 against official sources

Gross pay and pay periods

Salary is divided by the number of paychecks per year (52 weekly, 26 biweekly, 24 semimonthly, 12 monthly). Hourly pay is rate × hours per week × 52. Daily, quarterly and other payroll schedules are not offered.

Pre-tax deductions

Traditional 401(k)/403(b) deferrals reduce federal income-tax wages and, in most states, state income-tax wages — but not Social Security, Medicare or state payroll-premium wages (CA SDI, NY PFL/SDI, NJ UI/DI/FLI, WA PFML/WA Cares, MA PFML, PA UC, CO FAMLI). Pennsylvania (state and local) and Massachusetts tax 401(k) deferrals, so they do not reduce those states' withholding. Indiana state and county withholding in this calculator follow federal AGI treatment (401(k) reduces the state/county base). Section 125 (cafeteria plan) health premiums are treated as pre-tax for every tax shown.

Federal income tax

We implement Worksheet 1A of IRS Publication 15-T (2026) — the percentage method for automated payroll systems with a 2020-or-later Form W-4 — including the Step 2 checkbox tables and Steps 3, 4(a), 4(b) and 4(c). Our test suite compares the engine with all 4,350 cells of the 2026 wage-bracket tables for weekly, biweekly, semimonthly and monthly pay, with zero differences. W-4 forms from 2019 or earlier are not supported.

Social Security: 6.2% of wages up to $184,500 for 2026. Medicare: 1.45% of all wages, plus 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax withheld on wages above $200,000 regardless of filing status. These are computed on annual wages and shown per paycheck as an average; in reality Social Security stops once you reach the wage base and the 0.9% begins only after you pass $200,000.

California

California EDD 2026 Method B (exact calculation): low-income exemption, estimated-deduction allowances, standard deduction, tax-rate tables, and exemption credits. SDI is 1.3% of SDI wages with no cap. HSA payroll contributions (which California taxes) are not modeled.

New York

NYS-50-T-NYS, NYS-50-T-NYC and NYS-50-T-Y (1/26) exact-calculation methods, including the high-income Method III rates. NYC applies to residents only. Yonkers resident withholding is 16.75% of New York State withholding; the 0.5% Yonkers nonresident earnings tax and other local taxes are not modeled. Disability benefits contribution: 0.5% of wages up to $0.60 a week. Paid Family Leave 2026: 0.432% of gross wages up to $411.91 a year.

In testing, three published examples differ from an exact calculation by one cent because of rounding or a rate printed differently in the example text (NYS single semimonthly, NYS married semimonthly and Yonkers monthly). We follow the tables exactly.

Illinois

Booklet IL-700-T (2026) automated payroll formula: 4.95% × (wages − (Line 1 allowances × $2,925 + Line 2 allowances × $1,000) ÷ pay periods).

Texas, Florida and Tennessee

None of these states taxes wages, so no state income tax is withheld. Tennessee employers pay the full cost of state unemployment insurance, so nothing is deducted from pay for it.

Pennsylvania

3.07% of compensation (REV-415), with 401(k) deferrals included. Local: Philadelphia Wage Tax 3.735% resident / 3.425% non-resident (effective July 1, 2026) or the EIT rate you enter, applied to the same wages; Local Services Tax as an annual amount (max $52) spread over paychecks; UC employee contribution 0.07% of gross wages, rounded per the Department of Labor & Industry rule.

New Jersey

Percentage-method rate tables A–E for weekly, biweekly, semimonthly and monthly pay (NJ Division of Taxation), parsed directly from the official PDF, with allowances of $19.20/$38.40/$41.60/$83.30 per period. 2026 worker contributions: UI 0.3825% + WF/SWF 0.0425% on $44,800; DI 0.19% and FLI 0.23% on $171,100, shown as yearly averages.

North Carolina

NC-30 (2026) percentage method: 4.09% × (wages − standard deduction − allowances × $2,500/yr), rounded to the whole dollar.

Georgia

2026 Employer's Tax Guide (Sept 2026) percentage method, Table E standard deductions and $5,000 dependent allowances, at the 4.99% rate in effect from May 11, 2026.

Ohio

Optional computer formula effective August 1, 2026 ($650 per exemption; 1.6% / 2.99% / 3.4%). Our tests confirm it agrees with the per-period percentage tables within one cent. Municipal tax is the rate you enter × Medicare wages; school district tax is not modeled.

Michigan

4.25% × (wages − exemptions × $5,900 ÷ pay periods) (Form 446, 2026). City income taxes are not modeled.

Virginia

Annualized formula from the Employer Withholding Instructions (Rev. 10/26): $8,750 standard deduction, $930 per exemption, $800 per age/blind exemption; annual tax rounded to the dollar as in the official example.

Arizona

The Form A-4 percentage you elect (0%–3.5%, default 2.0%) × gross taxable wages.

Washington

Paid Family & Medical Leave: 1.13% × 71.43% employee share of wages up to $184,500; WA Cares: 0.58% of all wages unless exempt. Workers' compensation (L&I) hourly premiums are not modeled.

Massachusetts

Circular M (2026) percentage method: subtract FICA withheld (until $2,000 for the year), subtract the exemption factor, annualize, apply 5% (9% above $1,107,750), then subtract head-of-household and blindness amounts. Because the FICA subtraction ends during the year, we show the annual average per paycheck. PFML: 0.46% of wages up to $184,500.

Colorado

DR 1098 (2026): annualize taxable wages, subtract the W-4-based allowance ($11,000 if married filing jointly or qualifying surviving spouse; $5,500 otherwise) or the amount from Form DR 0004 Line 2, multiply by 4.40%, and divide by pay periods. FAMLI employee premium: 0.44% of wages up to the Social Security wage base ($184,500); uncheck the exemption box only when your employer deducts the employee share.

Indiana

Departmental Notice #1 (effective October 1, 2026): subtract WH-4 exemption constants ($1,000 personal / $1,500 dependent or first-time / $3,000 adopted, per year ÷ pay periods) from wages, then withhold 2.95% state tax plus your county income tax rate on the same taxable amount. County rates are the Notice #1 chart (all 92 counties).

Mortgage, loan and auto loan

Standard fixed-rate amortization: payment M = P·r(1+r)^n / ((1+r)^n − 1) with r = APR/12. Each month's interest is rounded to the cent and the final payment absorbs rounding so the balance ends at zero. Tests confirm the schedule's principal sums to the loan amount and the payment stream's present value equals the principal.

Compound interest

Month-by-month simulation with the equivalent monthly rate for the chosen compounding frequency; matches the closed-form future-value formula for monthly compounding.

Federal income tax estimate

IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 rate tables and standard deductions for 2026, cross-checked against the 2026 Tax Rate Schedules printed in Form 1040-ES. Ordinary income only; capital-gain rates, AMT, self-employment tax and the 2025–2028 senior/tips/overtime/car-loan deductions are not included.

Tip calculator

Tip = bill × tip% ÷ 100, rounded to the nearest cent; total = bill + tip; per-person amounts divide those figures by the number of people and round again. U.S. custom is to tip on the pre-tax amount — enter the subtotal when the receipt separates tax.

Age and date difference

Calendar arithmetic in UTC. Whole months are counted from the start date; a start day that does not exist in a month is clamped to that month's last day.

How we verify

Before any calculator change is published, an automated suite must pass: the official worked examples from each agency's publication, every cell of the IRS 2026 wage-bracket tables (weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, monthly), independent hand-computed cases, a check that every option on each form is understood by the engine, and cross-checks against independent third-party calculators — PaycheckCity for paychecks and calculator.net for loan, mortgage, auto-loan, compound-interest and date math. We then run every page in a real browser.

In the 2026-10-25 PaycheckCity cross-check (30 scenarios, 15 states), federal withholding, Social Security and Medicare matched to the cent. State and local withholding matched to the cent or within 6 cents in every state except New Jersey, where PaycheckCity uses the annual-payroll table and we use the official per-pay-period table (up to 49 cents apart per paycheck; we confirmed PaycheckCity's figure exactly with the annual table). For annual limits — wage-base caps and the Massachusetts $2,000 FICA subtraction — PaycheckCity shows a single first paycheck, while we show a yearly average; those items were compared on a first-paycheck basis and matched. For loans and savings, payments and balances matched calculator.net to the cent; total interest can differ by up to a dollar or two because we round each month's interest to the cent as a lender would.

Tennessee was added on 2026-10-27 and cross-checked against PaycheckCity the same day (3 scenarios): federal withholding, Social Security, Medicare and take-home pay matched to the cent, with no Tennessee state tax on either side. Colorado was added on 2026-10-30 using DR 1098 (4.40%) and FAMLI employee 0.44%; DR 1098 worksheet cases and independent hand cases are in the test suite. Indiana was added on 2026-10-31 using Departmental Notice #1 (state 2.95% and county rates effective Oct 1, 2026); the official weekly worked example and hand cases are in the test suite.

Every day we also re-check the live site and whether any official source document has changed.

Sales tax calculator

Statewide rates and population-weighted average local rates from Tax Foundation State and Local Sales Tax Rates, Midyear 2026 (as of July 1, 2026). Statewide rates were unchanged from the January 1, 2026 table; precise decimals for Missouri (4.225%), Minnesota (6.875%), New Jersey (6.625%) and New Mexico (4.875%) come from that January table. Add mode: tax = price × rate ÷ 100 (cent-rounded), total = price + tax. Remove mode: pre-tax = total ÷ (1 + rate ÷ 100), tax = total − pre-tax. Average local rates are statewide averages, not your city’s exact rate — use Custom when you know the combined rate.

Not included

Bonuses and other supplemental wages; multiple jobs; mid-year changes
Roth (after-tax) contributions, HSA contributions, garnishments and other after-tax deductions
Local income taxes other than NYC/Yonkers resident tax, Pennsylvania EIT/Philadelphia/LST and Ohio municipal tax
Pre-2020 Forms W-4; nonresident, reciprocity and part-year situations

Sources

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