Tax Calculator

How the 2026 federal income tax is built

Federal income tax is built in three moves. Start with total income, subtract the deduction to get taxable income, then run the taxable income through the bracket table, where each rate applies only to the slice of income inside that bracket. Credits come off the tax at the end, dollar for dollar.

The default example is a single filer with $85,000 of total income for 2026. The standard deduction of $16,100 leaves $68,900 of taxable income. The first $12,400 is taxed at 10 percent for $1,240, the next $38,000 is taxed at 12 percent for $4,560, and the last $18,500 is taxed at 22 percent for $4,070. The total is $9,870.00, which is 11.61 percent of the $85,000 earned and leaves $75,130.00 after federal income tax.

Only the last dollar sits in the 22 percent bracket, which is why the bracket rate is called marginal. The average across all income, 11.61 percent here, is the effective rate. The widget prints both, along with the bracket by bracket table above, so you can see which slice of income each rate reached.

The 2026 brackets for every filing status

The seven rates are permanent at 10, 12, 22, 24, 32, 35 and 37 percent, but the income edges move every year with inflation. For 2026 the IRS published the table below in its October 2025 inflation adjustment release, and Revenue Procedure 2025-32 is the controlling document that carries the same figures in full. These figures apply to the return you file in 2027 for the 2026 tax year, and the IRS release on the 2026 adjustments sets out the same brackets and deduction amounts.

The joint table is exactly twice the single table at every edge up to the 35 percent bracket, which is deliberate. The head of household table sits between the two, built for an unmarried person who pays more than half the cost of keeping up a home for a dependent. Married filing separately shares the single edges until the 35 percent bracket, where it splits off at $384,350, and it gives up most credits, which is why it is rarely the better choice.

Notice how narrow the head of household 10 percent bracket is at $17,700 and how wide its 12 percent bracket runs, to $67,450. That shape is the tax code's way of giving a single earner with dependents a lower bill at the same income than a single filer with none.

The standard deduction, itemizing and the age 65 addition

The standard deduction is a flat subtraction that needs no receipts, and for 2026 it is $16,100 for single and married filing separately, $32,200 for married filing jointly and $24,150 for head of household. You take the larger of the standard deduction or your itemized deductions, and the calculator makes that comparison for you.

Two additions sit on top. A taxpayer who is 65 or older or blind adds $1,650, raised to $2,050 for someone who is unmarried and not a surviving spouse, and a married couple can add it twice. A single filer who is 65 drops the example above from $16,100 of deductions to $18,150, taxable income from $68,900 to $66,850, and the tax from $9,870.00 to $9,419.00, a saving of $451.00.

Itemizing wins only when your receipts beat the standard amount. The same $85,000 filer with $20,000 of deductible mortgage interest and state tax uses $20,000 instead of $16,100, so taxable income falls to $65,000 and the tax to $9,012.00, a saving of $858.00 against taking the standard deduction.

The increase is permanent rather than a temporary provision that has to be renewed, which is why the 2025 and 2026 columns can be compared without guessing what happens next. Each figure in the table rose 2.2 percent, in line with the inflation adjustment applied to the brackets.

How the child tax credit changes the bill

The child tax credit is worth $2,200 for 2026 for each qualifying child under 17, and it comes off the tax after the brackets have done their work. Unlike a deduction, a credit is a dollar for dollar cut in what you owe, so a $4,400 credit is worth more than a $4,400 deduction at any income.

The credit fades out above $200,000 of income for single and head of household filers and above $400,000 for joint filers, at $50 for each $1,000 over the line. A joint filer at $450,000 with two children loses $2,500 of credit, so the $4,400 shrinks to $1,900. The tax before credits is $86,608.00 on that return and the credit takes it to $84,708.00.

The credit is also partly refundable, up to $1,700 per child, which means it can pay out even when it exceeds the tax owed. The refundable piece is capped at the smaller of $1,700 per child or 15 percent of earned income above $2,500, and only the credit the tax could not absorb flows through as a refund.

A head of household filer with $60,000 of income and two children makes the mechanics visible. Taxable income is $35,850 and the tax before credits is $3,948.00. The $4,400.00 credit wipes out the whole bill, and the unused $452.00 comes back as a refund, because the unused credit cap of $452.00 binds before either the $3,400.00 per child limit or the $8,625.00 earnings limit does. The widget prints the used part and the refundable part on separate lines.

Marginal rate against effective rate, and why a raise is not a trap

The most common tax fear is that a raise pushes you into a higher bracket and leaves you worse off. Brackets do not work that way, because only the income above the edge is taxed at the higher rate.

Take a single filer at $50,000. The standard deduction leaves $33,900 of taxable income and the tax is $3,820.00, an effective rate of 7.64 percent with a marginal rate of 12 percent. A $1,000 raise moves taxable income to $34,900 and the tax to $3,940.00. The raise costs $120.00 in tax and leaves $880.00 in hand.

The same $1,000 raise at $85,000 lands in the 22 percent bracket and costs $220.00, still well under the raise itself. For the higher rate to cost more than the raise, the marginal rate would have to pass 100 percent, which no bracket in this table does. The 37 percent top rate leaves 63 cents of every marginal dollar.

Where the fear does have a basis is in phaseouts, because those can cut a credit as income rises and push the true marginal rate above the bracket rate. The child tax credit fade out in the previous section is one example, and the earned income credit fades out even faster at the low end. The calculator does not model phaseouts other than the child credit, so treat its marginal rate as the bracket rate, not the full effective marginal rate.

Two incomes, one return: filing status changes the bill

Filing status is not a preference, it is a different bracket table and a different deduction, and the IRS Topic 751 sets out who may use each status. The same $150,000 of income produces three different bills depending on how it is filed.

As a single filer, $150,000 leaves $133,900 of taxable income and a tax of $24,734.00, an effective rate of 16.49 percent. Married filing jointly on the same income leaves $117,800 of taxable income and a tax of $15,340.00, an effective rate of 10.23 percent. The gap is $9,394.00, most of it the doubled deduction and the doubled 10 and 12 percent brackets.

The third row is the fairness test. Two people each earning $75,000 who stay single pay $7,670.00 each, $15,340.00 combined, exactly what one joint return on $150,000 pays. Because the joint table is double the single table through the 24 percent bracket, two similar incomes pay the same either way, while two incomes far apart, one at $130,000 and one at $20,000, pay less jointly than apart, which is the marriage bonus.

Above the 35 percent bracket edge the doubling stops, and two high incomes can pay more jointly than they would separately. That is the marriage penalty, and it is one reason the IRS withholding tables and this calculator both ask for filing status before anything else.

What this estimate leaves out

This calculator is a simplified estimate of the 2026 federal income tax, built for planning and comparison. It is not tax advice, and a real return has pieces this tool does not carry.

Payroll tax is the biggest omission. On top of income tax, employees pay 6.2 percent Social Security tax up to the 2026 wage base of $184,500, a maximum of $11,439.00, and 1.45 percent Medicare tax on every dollar, with an extra 0.9 percent on wages above $200,000. The Social Security Administration lists the 2026 wage base of $184,500 in its annual cost of living adjustment fact sheet. On the default $85,000 salary that adds $6,502.50, so the all in federal take is closer to $16,372.50 than to $9,870.00. Self employed people pay both halves under the self employment tax instead.

State income tax varies from zero in some states to more than 10 percent at the top in others, and it runs on its own brackets. Investment income is taxed at 0, 15 and 20 percent rather than the ordinary rates. The alternative minimum tax, the net investment income tax, itemized deduction limits and the long list of other credits all sit outside this model.

Use the output to compare two job offers, size a raise, or sanity check a withholding setting. Before you file, run the numbers through the IRS withholding estimator or a paid preparer, and treat any difference as a signal to look at which pieces the simpler model left out.