Disclaimer

Not professional advice

StateLine Calc publishes general educational information. We are not accountants, enrolled agents, tax preparers, attorneys or financial advisers, we do not hold ourselves out as any of those, and using this site does not create a professional relationship with anyone.

A calculator cannot see your circumstances. It does not know about your side income, your dependants, your equity compensation, the state you moved from in March, or the letter your employer sent about benefits. A professional can. For anything with money or a filing deadline attached, talk to one who is licensed in your state.

Why the number will not match your pay stub exactly

Two different things get called “what I pay in tax.” Your withholding is a running estimate your employer makes each pay period from your W-4. Your liability is the final figure settled when you file. They are rarely identical, which is why refunds and balances due exist at all.

Our calculators estimate liability on a simplified wage situation. The most common reasons your real pay stub shows something different:

• Pre-tax deductions. A 401(k), 403(b), HSA or FSA contribution and most employer health premiums come out before federal income tax is figured, which lowers the tax you actually pay.
• Tax credits. The Child Tax Credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit and education credits reduce tax owed dollar for dollar. We do not model them.
• Itemized deductions. We apply the standard deduction. If you itemize, your taxable income differs.
• Your W-4 settings. Extra withholding, multiple-jobs adjustments and dependant entries all change what your employer takes out.
• Multiple jobs or a working spouse. Each employer withholds as though it were your only income, which routinely under-withholds across a year.
• Non-wage income. Self-employment, dividends, interest, capital gains and rental income are outside these tools entirely.
• Local taxes. Some cities and counties levy their own income taxes, which are set locally and are not included here, with two exceptions: the Indiana and Maryland calculators add the local income tax for the county you choose.
• Pay-period rounding and mid-year changes. A raise, a bonus, unpaid leave or hitting the Social Security wage base mid-year all shift individual paychecks.

Rates can change after we publish

Every rate we use is read from an official source and published with the date it was checked — see the methodology page for the full list. Tax law still changes, agencies still revise figures, and a page can go stale between reviews. If our figure and the agency’s figure disagree, the agency is right. Please report it so we can fix it.

Where this matters most

Be especially careful about relying on an estimate if you are:

• deciding whether to accept a job offer in another state;
• setting your own withholding or estimated quarterly payments;
• working out whether you can afford a mortgage or a lease;
• self-employed, or paid partly in equity or commission;
• living in one state and working in another, or working remotely across state lines.

Every one of those has details our calculators do not model.

Outside links

We link to government agencies and other sites where they are the source of a figure or are genuinely useful. We do not control them and are not responsible for their content or availability.

Advertising

There is no advertising on the site today. We intend to add it, and when we do, ads will be clearly identifiable and never placed above a calculator or styled to look like results. An advertisement is not an endorsement by us of whatever it promotes.

The short version

Use these tools to understand your pay. Do not use them as the sole basis for a decision with real money riding on it. See also the terms of use and the privacy policy.