About StateLine Calc

Why the site exists

The question “what will I actually take home?” has a precise answer, and it is oddly hard to get. Search for it and you land on either a payroll company’s lead-capture form or a calculator that gives you a number with no explanation of where it came from. Neither tells you which rates were applied, whether they are current, or what the tool quietly assumed about your situation.

We built the site we wanted to find: the number, the arithmetic behind it, and the source for every rate, on one page, with nothing to sign up for.

What makes it different

Every rate carries a source and a date

Tax figures change annually. A rate without a date is a rate you cannot trust. Ours come from the IRS, the Social Security Administration and the individual state agencies that set payroll contributions, and each page states when the figures were last verified. Our methodology page lists them all in one table.

Nothing you type is collected

The calculations run in your browser. We never see your salary, we do not ask for an email, and there is no account. This is enforced by the site’s security policy and checked by an automated test that inspects live network traffic after every deployment, not merely asserted in a privacy page. Our privacy policy also states plainly what our analytics do collect, which is page views, not paychecks.

The answer is on the page, not only in the tool

Every calculator page also publishes its results as a plain table across a range of salaries. That way you can find your figure without typing anything, and search engines and AI assistants can read the answer — they cannot run a JavaScript calculator.

We say what the tools do not do

Our calculators model a straightforward situation: one job, the standard deduction, wages only. They do not model itemized deductions, tax credits, 401(k) contributions or multiple jobs. That limitation is stated on every page rather than buried, because an estimate that hides its assumptions is worse than no estimate.

Who publishes it

StateLine Calc is published as a small independent project rather than under an individual byline. We think a money calculator should be judged on whether its arithmetic is right and its sources are current, which are things you can check for yourself on the methodology page — not on a photograph and a job title.

We are not accountants, tax preparers or financial advisers, and we do not present ourselves as any of those. We read the official rate publications, implement the arithmetic, test it, and show our work. For anything with real money riding on it, talk to a qualified professional in your state.

How the site is paid for

The site is free to use and we intend to fund it with advertising. There are no ads on it today. When that changes, the privacy policy will be updated before the first ad appears, and ads will never be placed above a calculator or styled to look like results. We do not sell your data, because we do not have any to sell.

Corrections

If a number here is wrong, we would rather fix it than defend it. Tell us which page and which figure, and we will check it against the source. See the contact page.

Where to start

• Paycheck calculators by state — the main hub.
• Washington paycheck calculator — live now, including the two payroll contributions people forget in a state with no income tax.
• Methodology — the formula, the sources and the limits.