Take Home Pay Calculator — Your Real Paycheck, Estimated
Enter your gross salary and filing status to see what actually lands in your bank account after federal taxes and FICA — annual, monthly, biweekly, semi-monthly and weekly, with 2025 and 2026 tax data.
Your details
Pre-tax wages for the year, in US dollars.
401(k), HSA, FSA, health premiums — subtracted before taxes.
0 keeps the federal-only default.
Advanced options — spouse, dependents, deductions & credits
Wages from a second job or side work — taxed together with your salary.
Your spouse’s wages on a joint return — taxed together with yours, but Social Security uses a separate wage cap for each spouse (the two-earner setup behind the W-4 Step 2 checkbox). Ignored for other filing statuses.
A few cities (New York City is the big one) tax wages on top of the state — applied to the same wages as the state estimate.
Credits beyond the child and dependent credits in the Dependents section below — education, child-care and similar. They come straight off your federal tax, never below $0.
Mortgage interest, charitable gifts, state and local taxes and the rest — used only when the total beats your standard deduction.
Child tax credit: $2,200 per child, phased out over $200,000 of income ($400,000 joint); the refundable part (up to $1,700 per child) is included.
Dependents who do not qualify for the child tax credit — $500 credit each.
Each ticked box adds the age-65 standard-deduction amount ($2,000 single or head of household, $1,600 per spouse — 2025; $2,050 / $1,650 for 2026) and counts toward the senior deduction in the next section.
Voluntary cash or charged tips in an occupation on the IRS tipped-occupations list — deductible up to $25,000 on Schedule 1-A.
Only the premium half of time-and-a-half counts. If a pay stub shows total overtime pay at time-and-a-half, divide it by 3. Deductible up to $12,500 ($25,000 joint).
Interest on a qualifying car loan — deductible up to $10,000; tick the box below to confirm the car qualifies.
The interest deduction is counted only when this box is ticked — the same tests Schedule 1-A applies. The age boxes above also drive the senior deduction (up to $6,000 per eligible person, phased out over $75,000 of income, $150,000 joint).
Self-employment tax — 12.4% Social Security + 2.9% Medicare on 92.35% of net earnings — replaces the employee FICA shares on the main income, and half of it comes off your taxable income. A second job and a spouse’s wages stay on the employee rules.
Spouse and second-job income, dependents and their credits, itemized deductions, the 2025–2028 new-law deductions, age-65 amounts, self-employment and other credits are already included in the result with their default values — open Advanced options to change them.
This live chart breaks your gross pay into what you keep and what goes to each federal tax — it updates as you type.
Your effective federal tax rate (everything combined) is 21.10% — that is total tax divided by gross salary, not your tax bracket.
- On a $100,000 salary filing single for 2025, take-home pay is $78,901 a year — $6,575.08 a month — after $21,099 of federal tax and FICA.
- Social Security stops at $176,100 of wages in 2025 ($184,500 in 2026), but Medicare’s 1.45% never stops — and pre-tax deductions shrink the wages both are charged on.
- Filing status moves the standard deduction — $15,750 single versus $31,500 married filing jointly in 2025 — which is why the same salary can land differently.
The complete guide to take-home pay
How the estimate is built, what changed for 2026, the four filing statuses, FICA mechanics, and everything this fast estimator deliberately leaves out.
💰What this net pay calculator does
I think of this page as a net pay calculator first: you give me a gross salary, and I hand you back the one number that matters on payday — what actually lands in your bank account. It works just as well as an after tax income calculator, because that is literally the math: start with gross pay, subtract federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare, then subtract any pre-tax deductions and the optional state estimate you enter above. Nothing else is hidden in the estimate, and every figure in this guide shows its working.
People arrive here searching for a take home calculator, an after tax calculator, an income after tax calculator or a take home salary calculator — different labels for the same question, and this page answers all of them with the same IRS and Social Security figures. Your net pay is simply your gross pay after every one of those layers comes off, so let me walk you through each layer in order.
🧮The math behind your take-home pay
Take-home pay follows one simple chain: subtract pre-tax deductions, your standard or itemized deduction and any Schedule 1-A deductions from your gross salary, run the result through the progressive federal brackets, take off your credits, add FICA, then subtract everything from gross.
Taxable income = Gross − Pre-tax deductions − (Standard or itemized deduction) − Schedule 1-A deductions
Take-home = Gross − (Federal tax after credits + Social Security + Medicare + State est.)
Worked example — $100,000 salary, filing Single (2025):
| Step | Calculation | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Taxable income | $100,000 − $15,750 standard deduction | $84,250 |
| Federal tax | 10% × $11,925 + 12% × $36,550 + 22% × $35,775 | $13,449 |
| Social Security | 6.2% × $100,000 (under the $176,100 cap) | $6,200 |
| Medicare | 1.45% × $100,000 (under $200,000 — no extra 0.9%) | $1,450 |
| Annual take-home | $100,000 − $21,099 total tax | $78,901 |
🧾The deduction stack: every layer between gross and net
When I estimate a paycheck, I peel the same layers off your gross pay, in the same order your payroll department does:
- Pre-tax deductions come off first. Anything you enter in the pre-tax field — 401(k) contributions, HSA and FSA money, health insurance premiums — leaves before any tax is figured. In this calculator those dollars escape federal income tax and FICA entirely, which is why this layer is the most powerful one you can adjust.
- Federal income tax. Next I apply the standard deduction — $15,750 for single filers in 2025 and $16,100 in 2026; $31,500 and $32,200 if you file jointly (IRS figures for each tax year) — and run what is left through the progressive federal brackets, the same bracket tables that sit behind the IRS withholding method in Publication 15-T.
- Social Security. 6.2% of your remaining wages, but only up to the Social Security Administration’s wage base — $176,100 in 2025 and $184,500 in 2026. Earn more than that and this layer simply stops for the rest of the year.
- Medicare. 1.45% on every dollar, with no cap, plus an extra 0.9% on wages above $200,000 if you file single ($250,000 joint, $125,000 married filing separately) — the Additional Medicare Tax, which your employer does not match.
- State income tax — the optional layer. Enter your state’s rate above and I apply it to the same wage base; leave it at zero and the estimate stays federal-only. As of 2026, nine states levy no tax on wages at all — Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming (New Hampshire finished repealing its interest-and-dividends tax on January 1, 2025) — while the rest take anything from under 3% to over 13% at the top.
One layer this estimator deliberately flattens: bonuses. Your employer withholds a flat 22% federal tax on a bonus paid separately from regular wages (37% on supplemental pay above $1 million in a year, per IRS Publication 15), which is why a bonus check looks so much smaller than you expected. Spread across a full year, that same bonus is taxed at your ordinary bracket rates — the difference comes back, or is owed, when you file your return.
A note on freshness: every parameter on this page is dated. The brackets and standard deductions are the IRS figures for tax years 2025 and 2026, and the wage bases are the Social Security Administration’s announced figures for those same years. I refresh them each year when the IRS and SSA publish the new ones — it is the one scheduled update this page ever needs.
🆕Pay frequency, dependents, two earners and the 2025–2028 deductions
Pay frequency. The salary field no longer has to be annual: pick how often you are paid — monthly, semi-monthly, biweekly, weekly, daily, quarterly or semi-annually — and the amount you enter is annualised first (a daily rate counts 260 paid days a year). Every figure after that is the same annual math.
Dependents. Children under 17 now earn the child tax credit directly in the tool — $2,200 per child, reduced by $50 for every $1,000 of income over $200,000 ($400,000 on a joint return) — plus $500 for each other dependent. If your tax is too small to use the whole child credit, the refundable additional child tax credit (up to $1,700 per child, worked out at 15% of earnings over $2,500) is added back into your take-home.
Two earners. A spouse’s wages on a joint return get their own Social Security wage cap here, because the cap is per person, not per return: two spouses earning $200,000 each in 2026 pay Social Security on $184,500 each. That is also why the IRS W-4 has its Step 2 two-earner checkbox — each job’s withholding alone pretends it owns the whole joint standard deduction, so two-earner households who skip Step 2 usually owe in April. This page combines both incomes before taxing them, which is the correction Step 2 approximates.
The new-law deductions (2025–2028). Four deductions from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act sit in Advanced options, claimed on Schedule 1-A whether or not you itemize, and they reduce taxable income (not AGI): qualified tips up to $25,000; the premium half of overtime pay up to $12,500 ($25,000 joint); interest on a qualifying new, US-assembled car loan up to $10,000; and $6,000 for each filer aged 65 or older. Each phases out over its own income line ($75,000 / $150,000 joint for seniors, $150,000 / $300,000 for tips and overtime, $100,000 / $200,000 for car interest), and tips, overtime and the senior amount are closed to married-filing-separately filers. The same age boxes also add the older, separate age-65 standard-deduction amounts. Figures per IRS Schedule 1-A and FS-2026-04, checked October 2026.
Self-employment. Tick the self-employment box and the main income is taxed as self-employment income instead: 12.4% + 2.9% on 92.35% of net earnings replaces the employee FICA shares, and half of that tax comes off your taxable income.
Worked example — two earners with tips, 2026: married filing jointly, a $120,000 salary plus a spouse’s $60,000, two children under 17 and $10,000 of qualified tips. Combined income $180,000 − $32,200 standard deduction − $10,000 tips deduction = $137,800 taxable. Federal tax is $19,740 before credits and $15,340 after the $4,400 child tax credit; Social Security is $11,160 (each spouse under their own cap) and Medicare $2,610, bringing total tax to $29,110 — take-home $150,890.
🔢Salary after taxes: a $75,000 example, step by step
Let me run a salary I get asked about constantly: $75,000 a year, filing single, tax year 2025, no pre-tax deductions and no state tax. I will use the exact steps the calculator above uses, so you can type the same numbers in and watch it agree with me to the cent.
| Step | Calculation | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Taxable income | $75,000 − $15,750 standard deduction | $59,250 |
| Federal tax | 10% × $11,925 + 12% × $36,550 + 22% × $10,775 | $7,949 |
| Social Security | 6.2% × $75,000 (well under the $176,100 cap) | $4,650 |
| Medicare | 1.45% × $75,000 (no extra 0.9% under $200,000) | $1,087.50 |
| Total tax | $7,949 + $4,650 + $1,087.50 | $13,686.50 |
| Annual take-home | $75,000 − $13,686.50 | $61,313.50 |
That is an effective tax rate of 18.25% — noticeably below the 22% bracket this salary reaches, because most of the income is taxed at 10% and 12% instead. The calculator rounds its annual cards to whole dollars (you will see $61,314), then splits the exact figure by pay period: a monthly net income of $5,109.46, $2,358.21 on a biweekly schedule, $2,554.73 semi-monthly and $1,179.11 weekly. Budget from the monthly net income figure if you are paid biweekly — two months a year carry a third check, and treating that check as found money is how budgets quietly break.
📅2025 vs 2026: what changed
Use the tax-year toggle above — 2026 brackets and deductions are already in. The IRS adjusts both for inflation each year (about +2–3% for 2026):
| 2025 | 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Standard deduction — Single | $15,750 | $16,100 |
| Standard deduction — Joint | $31,500 | $32,200 |
| Standard deduction — HoH | $23,625 | $24,150 |
| Social Security wage base | $176,100 | $184,500 |
| Single 22% bracket tops out | $103,350 | $105,700 |
Worked example — $100,000 Single (2026): taxable $83,900 → 10% × $12,400 + 12% × $38,000 + 22% × $33,500 = $13,170 federal tax — $279 less than 2025, purely from inflation adjustments. Toggle the year above to compare your own salary.
👨👩👧The four filing statuses
Your status changes your standard deduction and your brackets — picking the wrong one silently gives the wrong answer:
- Single: unmarried filers. 2025 standard deduction $15,750.
- Married filing jointly: combined income, roughly doubled brackets, $31,500 deduction — usually the lowest tax for couples.
- Head of household: unmarried with a qualifying dependent (e.g., a child). $23,625 deduction and wider brackets than Single — e.g., $60,000 HoH in 2025 owes just $4,025 federal tax.
- Married filing separately: same brackets as Single with a $15,750 deduction; the additional-Medicare threshold drops to $125,000. Rarely better than joint, but sometimes chosen for liability or loan reasons.
🏦FICA: the tax that stops
FICA is separate from income tax and applies to wages before the standard deduction:
- Social Security — 6.2% on the first $176,100 of 2025 wages ($184,500 in 2026). Earnings above that pay nothing more, so the maximum is $10,918.20. High earners see this tax stop mid-year — a $250,000 salary and a $500,000 salary pay the same Social Security amount.
- Medicare — 1.45% on all wages, with no cap.
- Additional Medicare — 0.9% on wages above $200,000 (single/HoH), $250,000 (joint) or $125,000 (separate). Only the dollars above the threshold pay it, and only the employee pays it — your employer does not match it.
Pre-tax deductions entered above reduce FICA wages too: $100,000 with $10,000 of pre-tax deductions means Social Security of $5,580 and Medicare of $1,305 on the $90,000 balance.
🌱Pre-tax deductions: what a 401(k) really does to your paycheck
The pre-tax field above is the one input I see people underestimate. Because this calculator subtracts those dollars before federal tax and FICA are figured, contributing costs your actual bank deposit less than the amount you put away. Watch what happens to the $75,000 salary above when I add a modest $5,000 of pre-tax 401(k) contributions:
Taxable income falls to $54,250, so federal tax drops from $7,949 to $6,849. FICA is then figured on $70,000 instead of $75,000 — Social Security $4,340, Medicare $1,015 — and total tax falls to $12,204. The calculator’s take-home figure rises by exactly the tax saved, $1,482.50, to $62,796, because that figure is gross minus taxes: the $5,000 itself is not lost pay, it is pay you redirected into the plan before tax. In deposit terms, your bank account gives up $5,000 minus the $1,482.50 saving — $3,517.50 — while your retirement account gains the full $5,000.
The room you have to work with: the IRS caps employee 401(k) contributions at $23,500 for 2025 and $24,500 for 2026, with catch-up contributions on top if you are 50 or older. HSA and FSA contributions and health insurance premiums entered in the same field get the same pre-tax treatment here.
⚠️What this fast estimator leaves out (honestly)
This tool models federal taxes precisely. Your real take-home pay will differ if any of these apply:
- State and local income tax — use the optional estimator above (clearly labeled); nine states charge none, others take several percent.
- The earned income credit — the EITC is not modelled here; our Tax Return Calculator covers it in full.
- Investment income — capital gains and dividends are taxed at their own preferential rates and are not modelled here.
- Exact per-paycheck withholding — your employer follows your W-4 and IRS Publication 15-T, and bonuses are withheld at a flat 22% supplemental rate; this page estimates the full-year liability instead, which is the number that decides your refund or bill.
Use this as a fast, honest federal baseline — then adjust for your state’s tax. For the detailed version with 401(k) nuances, see our Salary Calculator.
💵US federal income tax is progressive
Each slice of your taxable income is taxed at its own rate — only the dollars inside a bracket pay that bracket’s rate. For 2025 the single-filer brackets are 10% to $11,925, 12% to $48,475, 22% to $103,350, 24% to $197,300, 32% to $250,525, 35% to $626,350, and 37% above. Married filing jointly gets roughly doubled thresholds. That is why a raise never costs you money: only the new dollars face the higher rate.
Keep exploring
Three companion tools for a fuller picture of your money.
Full federal liability estimate.
→Detailed take-home breakdown.
→Grow what you keep.
→How it works
Three steps to calculate take home pay — from gross salary to the number that hits your account.
Type your pre-tax pay — per paycheck or per year — and pick your filing status and tax year.
Standard deduction, progressive brackets, and FICA — calculated instantly.
Annual take-home is the hero number; this paycheck calculator then shows monthly, biweekly, semi-monthly and weekly cards.
Take-home pay by US state and New York City: examples and pointers
The federal chain is the same everywhere. The state chain, and the city chain in New York, are what differ.
Take-home pay differs by state because state income tax differs, and in New York City it differs again, because the city levies its own income tax on top of the state tax. The federal chain — gross, pre-tax deductions, federal withholding, payroll taxes — is the same in every state, and the state chain is layered on top of it, on the state’s own definition of taxable wages, with the state’s own brackets and standard deduction, and the city chain, where it exists, is layered on top of that. A $75,000 salary therefore produces a different net cheque in New York City, in Texas, and in California, not because the salary differs, but because the layers differ, and a comparison of offers across states must compare the net figures, layer by layer, with the state and city figures for the year from the official sources.
The state guides on this site work the comparison in full, with the same salary netted in every state, and the city detail for New York is carried there, with the city brackets and the interaction with the state tax. The method is to build the federal figure first, add the state figure on the state’s own rules, add the city figure where it applies, and compare the nets — and then to compare the nets with the cost of living, which is a separate comparison that no tax calculation performs. A salary that is generous net in one city may be tight net in another, and the take-home calculator’s state tables are the tool for the first comparison, not the last word on the offer.
Hourly, part-time, and overtime take-home pay
The chain is the same for every pattern. The inputs — the hours, the weeks, and the overtime pattern — are what change.
Hourly take-home pay is the hourly rate times the hours in the period, plus overtime at the multiplier, minus the pre-tax deductions, minus the taxes computed on the taxable wages, minus the post-tax deductions — the same chain as for a salary, with the gross pay computed from the hours rather than divided from the annual figure. Part-time take-home pay is the same chain on part-time hours, with leave accruing pro-rata and the deductions — the health premium, the retirement contribution — applied to the part-time gross, so that a part-time worker’s net figure is the part-time gross minus the same chain, not a full-time net figure halved. Overtime take-home pay is the chain on a period that includes overtime, with the withholding annualised from the overtime period’s wages, which over-withholds for that period and is corrected at filing, as the paycheck guide explains.
The pattern that most distorts a take-home estimate is the irregular pattern: a worker whose hours vary week to week, whose overtime clusters in some months, and whose commission arrives quarterly will find that no single period’s cheque describes the year’s take-home pay, and the honest figure is the year’s total — the year’s gross, minus the year’s deductions, minus the year’s taxes — divided by the number of periods, with the period cheques varying around it. The calculator’s annual view is that figure, and the period view is the cheque for one period, on that period’s hours. Both are correct, for different purposes, and the budget should use the annual average, while the period cheque should be checked against the period’s hours.
🧮The math behind your take-home pay
Take-home pay follows one simple chain: subtract your standard (or itemized) deduction and any Schedule 1-A deductions from your gross salary, run the result through the progressive federal brackets, take off your credits, add FICA, then subtract everything from gross.
Taxable income = Gross − (Standard or itemized deduction) − Schedule 1-A deductions → Take-home = Gross − (Federal tax after credits + Social Security + Medicare)
Worked example — $100,000 salary, filing Single (2025): taxable $84,250 → federal $13,449 + SS $6,200 + Medicare $1,450 = $21,099 → take-home $78,901.
📈Go deeper
US federal income tax is progressive: each slice of your taxable income is taxed at its own rate — only the dollars inside a bracket pay that bracket’s rate. For 2025 the single-filer brackets are 10% to $11,925, 12% to $48,475, 22% to $103,350, 24% to $197,300, 32% to $250,525, 35% to $626,350, and 37% above. Married filing jointly gets roughly doubled thresholds: 10% to $23,850, 12% to $96,950, 22% to $206,700, 24% to $394,600, 32% to $501,050, 35% to $751,600, and 37% above. The 2025 standard deduction is $15,750 for single filers and $31,500 for married filing jointly.
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers about take-home pay and how this estimate is built.
How do I calculate my take-home pay?
Subtract pre-tax deductions, your standard or itemized deduction and any Schedule 1-A deductions (the 2025–2028 tips, overtime, car-loan and senior deductions) from gross salary to get taxable income, apply the progressive federal brackets, take off the child, dependent and other credits you enter, add Social Security (6.2% up to the wage cap) and Medicare (1.45%, plus 0.9% over the threshold) — or self-employment tax in self-employment mode — then subtract total tax from gross. This calculator does all of it instantly — just enter your salary, filing status and tax year.
What is the standard deduction for 2025 and 2026?
2025: $15,750 single, $31,500 married filing jointly, $23,625 head of household, $15,750 married filing separately. 2026: $16,100 / $32,200 / $24,150 / $16,100. Toggle the tax year above; the calculator applies the right figures automatically. If you are 65 or older — or your spouse is, on a joint return — tick the age boxes under Advanced options: each one adds $2,000 (2025) or $2,050 (2026) for single and head-of-household filers, and $1,600 (2025) or $1,650 (2026) per spouse on joint and separate returns.
Does this include state taxes?
By default this is a federal-only estimate. Enter an optional state rate above for a clearly labeled estimate — state and local income taxes vary enormously, and nine states levy no income tax at all. Subtract your state’s tax separately for a complete picture.
What is the difference between take-home pay and net pay?
They are the same thing: gross salary minus all taxes and deductions. On a pay stub it is usually labeled “net pay”; in conversation people say “take-home pay.” This calculator shows the federal-tax version — your employer’s pay stub may be lower if it withholds state tax, retirement contributions, or insurance premiums.
Why does Social Security stop being withheld at high incomes?
Social Security tax (6.2%) applies only to the first $176,100 of 2025 wages ($184,500 in 2026) — the taxable maximum. Once your year-to-date earnings pass that cap, withholding stops, capped at $10,918.20. That is why a $250,000 salary and a $500,000 salary pay the same Social Security amount. Medicare has no cap and keeps going.
How is biweekly take-home pay calculated?
Divide annual take-home pay by 26 pay periods. For a $78,901 annual take-home, that is $3,034.65 per biweekly paycheck. Semi-monthly is ÷ 24 ($3,287.54). Note that two months each year contain three biweekly paychecks instead of two — those “extra” checks are already part of the annual total, not a bonus on top.
Do pre-tax deductions change the estimate?
Yes — enter 401(k), HSA, FSA or premium amounts above and they are subtracted before income tax and FICA are calculated. $100,000 Single (2025) with $10,000 of pre-tax deductions: FICA wages fall to $90,000 (SS $5,580, Medicare $1,305) and federal tax drops to $11,249.
What changed in the 2026 tax figures?
Brackets and deductions rose ~2–3% with inflation: the single standard deduction went $15,750 → $16,100, the 22% bracket top $103,350 → $105,700, and the Social Security wage base $176,100 → $184,500. A $100,000 single filer owes $13,170 federal tax for 2026 vs $13,449 for 2025.
What is take home pay?
Take home pay is what is left of your gross pay after everything withheld comes out: federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, any state or local tax, and your pre-tax deductions such as 401(k) contributions and health premiums. It is the amount that actually reaches your bank account — the same figure pay stubs label net pay. I calculate it above as gross salary minus each of those layers, in the order the deduction stack section explains.
Why is my take-home pay lower in January?
Three resets land on the first paychecks of the year. Social Security restarts: if your wages passed the $176,100 wage base in 2025 ($184,500 for 2026), the 6.2% tax had stopped late in the year, and it begins again in January on a fresh count. The IRS also issues updated withholding tables and inflation-adjusted brackets each year, which nudges federal withholding even at the same salary. And new benefit elections — health premiums, FSA or HSA amounts, a restarted or increased 401(k) contribution — usually take effect with the first January check.
Why does my take-home pay change when I change my W-4?
The W-4 controls federal withholding: the filing status, the adjustments for other income and deductions, and any extra withholding amount entered all change the withholding computed from the tables. A W-4 that claims an extra amount withholds more and produces a larger refund; a W-4 that accounts for a second job or a spouse’s income withholds more to cover the combined liability; a W-4 filed with no adjustments withholds the standard amount. The change takes effect in the next pay period, and its effect on the year’s refund is proportional to the pay periods remaining.
How do bonuses affect take-home pay?
A bonus raises the gross pay for the period, and the withholding is computed by annualising the period’s wages, so the bonus cheque looks heavily taxed — the tables assume every period carries a bonus. The year’s reconciliation corrects it: the bonus is one more piece of the year’s income, taxed at the marginal rate, and the excess withholding returns as a refund or reduces the bill. A bonus also raises the 401(k) contribution where the contribution is a percentage of gross, and it may push the year’s wages over the Social Security wage base earlier, stopping that tax for the remaining periods.
How do I calculate take-home pay for a part-time job?
Compute the gross from the part-time hours — hourly rate times hours per week times weeks worked — subtract the pre-tax deductions that apply to the part-time pattern, compute the taxes on the taxable wages with the same tables, and subtract post-tax deductions. The result is the part-time net figure, and the annual figure is the year’s part-time gross minus the year’s chain, divided by the periods. Leave accrues pro-rata, and the deductions are applied to the part-time gross, not to a full-time figure halved.
Related calculators
More ways to understand your money, down to the last dollar.
Federal liability.
Detailed take-home.
Grow savings.
Pay frequencies.
Monthly planning.
The chain, the 401(k) payroll-tax exception, pensions, and salary sacrifice.
Profit not revenue, both halves of payroll tax, and the rate that produces a living.
Related guides
In-depth guides to help you read your paycheck.
Every deduction line, explained in order.
How your W-4 turns into a refund or a bill.
From gross pay to the number you can spend.
The same salary in annual, monthly and per-check views.