The IRS Tax Withholding Estimator, and what it leaves out

Gross or net? Gross.

This is the question people actually get stuck on, and the answer is unambiguous: use the year-to-date gross figure from your paystub, not what arrives in your account. Withholding is what the tool is calculating, so feeding it a figure that already has withholding taken out corrupts every number downstream.

The same applies to your spouse’s pay if you file jointly, and to any pension already withholding federal tax. If a source has no federal withholding at all, the estimator is not built for it — the IRS says so directly.

What it does not cover, and why that is fair

The IRS calculates federal tax. It is a federal agency; state tax is not its job. But it leaves a real gap for the person doing the calculation, because 42 of the 51 US jurisdictions levy an income tax of their own, with their own brackets, their own standard deduction, their own credits and — in eleven of them — counties and cities that add more on top.

Two other things sit outside it. Form W-4 does not address FICA, because Social Security and Medicare come out at fixed rates whatever you write on the form — yet they are often the larger deduction for a middle income. And nonresident aliens are directed to Notice 1392 instead; the estimator is not built for them.

So the sensible order is: run the IRS tool for your W-4, then work out the state side separately. The calculator below does the second half, and shows FICA as its own line so you can see all three taxes rather than one blended number.

What the IRS estimator does that nothing else can

The IRS Tax Withholding Estimator is the authoritative tool for one specific job: deciding what to put on your W-4 so that next April lands where you want it. It is built by the people who wrote the rules, it is free, it carries no advertising, and its output maps directly onto the form's numbered steps. For that job, use it.

It also models things a general calculator does not. It handles multiple jobs in a household properly, pensions and Social Security benefits, self-employment income alongside a salary, and year-to-date figures from a payslip — so it can tell you what to do for the remaining months of a year already half spent, which is a genuinely harder calculation than the annual one.

Its weakness is the same as its strength: it answers a withholding question. It works from net rather than gross, it asks for figures most people have to go and find, it takes ten to fifteen minutes and cannot be abandoned half-way, and it does not model state or local income tax at all — which for a Maryland or Ohio or New York City worker is a substantial part of what leaves the pay packet.

So the honest split is by question. "What should I put on my W-4?" is the IRS estimator's question. "What will I actually take home on this offer, in this state, in this city?" is not, and that is the one this site is built for.

Where this calculator goes further

State tax is the first difference and the largest. The IRS models federal tax because that is its remit; on $85,000 the state layer ranges from nothing to $6,604 depending on where you live, which is too big a number to leave out of a take-home figure. Every one of the 37 states reviewed here was checked against its own department of revenue, and 12 of them turned out to carry a wrong figure in the compiled sources.

Local income tax is the second, and almost nothing models it. Eleven states let a city, county or school district levy its own — 3,672 jurisdictions across 7 states are loaded here, from every Pennsylvania municipality to New York City's own brackets, each read off the state's published rate file.

Speed is the third. Gross salary, filing status, state: three inputs and an answer, because most of the time the question is a comparison between two offers or two cities rather than a filing decision. Nothing to gather, nothing to abandon half-way.

And the property side is the fourth, which nothing else joins up. The tax on a salary and the tax on a house are the two numbers that decide whether a move works, they are set by different authorities, and comparing either alone regularly produces the opposite of the right answer.

What we do not claim: this is not a filing tool, it does not model itemised deductions or capital gains, and for setting your W-4 the IRS estimator remains the better instrument. A comparison page that finds its own product better at everything is not a comparison.

Which tool for which question

Setting or fixing your W-4: the IRS estimator, without qualification. It is the authoritative tool, its output maps onto the form's steps, and it handles mid-year year-to-date figures that an annual calculator cannot.

Comparing two job offers, or two cities: this calculator. The IRS does not model state tax and models no local tax at all, and those are precisely the lines that differ between the two options you are weighing.

Working out a refund after the year has ended: either, with care. The question is arithmetic — liability minus withholding — and what matters is that the liability side includes state and local, and that the withholding side excludes FICA.

Deciding whether a move is worth it: neither on its own. That requires the property tax side as well as the income side, because states trade the two against each other and comparing one alone regularly gives the opposite of the right answer. The county pages here carry the other half.

Filing: neither. These are planning tools. Filing software, a preparer, or IRS Free File is what produces a return, and no calculator on any site is a substitute for one.

Comparing two offers in two states

The question underneath most tax calculator searches is not a filing question at all: it is whether $120,000 somewhere else beats $110,000 here. Gross salaries are not comparable across state lines, and the gap can run to $9,666 a year in state income tax alone at that level.

Work in this order. Take-home first — gross, minus federal, minus FICA, minus state, minus any local tax — which is what this calculator produces. Then housing, because it is almost always larger than the tax difference and moves in the opposite direction from it: the states that tax income least frequently have the property rates that make up for it.

Then the taxes that do not appear on a payslip. Sales tax is unavoidable and heavier on households that spend most of what they earn. Property tax reaches renters through rent as surely as owners through escrow. 9 states levy no income tax and every one of them raises the money another way — the comparison that tells you anything is the total, not the line.

Then the things that are not taxes but behave like them: employer retirement matching, health premium share, commute cost, whether the role requires a car. A 6.00% match on $120,000 is $7,200 a year, which outweighs most of the state tax differences in the table.

And check the residency question if the two places are close together. Working across a state line generally means the state where the work happens taxes the income, with a credit in your home state — so a cross-border move can leave you filing twice and saving nothing.

What this calculator does not model

It assumes the standard deduction, which is what roughly nine in ten filers now take — but if you itemise, mortgage interest, state and local taxes within the cap, and charitable giving change the answer, and the calculator will overstate your tax.

It models salaried employment. Self-employment income carries both halves of FICA as self-employment tax, has its own deduction for the employer-equivalent portion, and brings the qualified business income deduction into play. None of that is here, and the gap is large enough that a freelancer using this figure will be materially wrong.

It does not handle capital gains, which are taxed on their own schedule with their own rates and thresholds, nor dividends, nor rental income, nor the net investment income tax that applies above $200,000 single. It does not model dependants beyond the standard deduction, education credits, or the premium tax credit — the last of which has phase-outs sharp enough to matter more than a bracket at some incomes.

Alternative Minimum Tax is out of scope. It reaches few people since the 2017 thresholds, but "few" is not "none", and anyone with large incentive stock option exercises should not be planning from an ordinary calculator.

What it does do, it does exactly: federal brackets, FICA including the wage base and the additional Medicare tax, every state's own rates and deductions, and the local income tax of eleven states. For a salaried worker taking the standard deduction, that is the whole of it — and where a case falls outside, the pages say so rather than returning a confident number for a situation they did not model.

How the numbers here were built

Federal brackets, the standard deduction and the FICA thresholds for 2026 come from the IRS revenue procedure itself rather than from a summary of it. That distinction matters more than it sounds: summaries are accurate about structure and unreliable about timing, and timing is what changes every year.

State figures were read one state at a time off each department of revenue's own publication. 21 of the 37 reviewed matched the compiled sources; 12 did not. Where a figure was wrong the page says what it was, what it should be, and which document settled it — rather than quietly correcting it, because a calculator that has never admitted an error is either new or not looking.

Local rates came from state rate files: Pennsylvania's official EIT register, Ohio's municipal and school district tables, Indiana's departmental notice, Michigan's city schedule, Maryland's county table, New York City's statutory brackets. 3,672 jurisdictions across 7 states. The recurring trap in that work is that withholding tables are not rate schedules — New York City's withholding runs lower than its statutory rates because it folds in a credit, and publishing one as the other is an error we came close to making.

The calculation itself is deterministic. Rates in, arithmetic out, no model deciding anything — the AI explanation on these pages describes a number it was given and never computes one, which is the only arrangement in which a language model belongs anywhere near a tax figure.

Every page carries the date its figures were verified and states plainly where a figure has not yet been checked against a primary source. "We have not looked" and "it does not exist" are different claims, and treating them as the same is how a calculator confidently tells someone a relief they qualify for is not available.

Questions

Where is the official IRS Tax Withholding Estimator?

At irs.gov/individuals/tax-withholding-estimator. It is free, it is the authoritative tool for federal withholding, and if your question is "how much should my employer take out of my pay", that is where to go. This page exists to help you get more out of it, not to replace it.

Does the IRS estimator ask for gross or net pay?

Gross. Work from the year-to-date gross figure on your paystub, not from what lands in your account. The tool needs your pay before withholding because withholding is precisely what it is calculating — feed it net pay and every number after that is wrong.

What do I need before I start?

The IRS says to have recent paystubs for you and your spouse, your most recent federal return, and records for any other income. Budget about 25 minutes. Having last year's return open matters more than people expect: several questions are far quicker to answer by reading a line off it than by reconstructing the figure.

Does the IRS estimator cover state tax?

No. It calculates federal withholding and produces a pre-filled Form W-4 or W-4P. Forty-two states levy their own income tax with their own brackets, deductions and credits, and none of that is in the IRS tool — it is not a shortcoming, it is simply out of scope for a federal agency. That is the specific gap this site fills.

Does it handle FICA?

Not through the W-4. Social Security and Medicare are fixed percentages — 6.2% and 1.45% — that come out regardless of what you put on the form, so the W-4 does not address them. They still change your take-home considerably, which is why the calculator below shows them as a separate line.

Is the IRS estimator safe to use?

Yes, and the IRS is explicit about it: the tool does not ask for your name, Social Security number, address or bank details, your information is not saved or shared with the IRS, and closing the browser window clears your answers.

The IRS estimator is down. What now?

It goes offline for maintenance, usually around filing-season updates, and it is normally back within hours. If you need a figure in the meantime, the calculator on this page runs entirely in your browser and will give you federal and state tax on a salary immediately — then go back and run the official tool for your actual W-4 when it returns.

Can I use it if I am a nonresident alien?

No. The IRS directs nonresidents to Notice 1392, Supplemental Form W-4 Instructions for Nonresident Aliens, instead. The estimator also assumes W-2 employment or a pension with federal withholding — if neither applies to you, it is the wrong tool.