Every number of the 2026 federal tax year, in a calculator

The order never changes, and most surprises come from forgetting a step. Total income (wages, interest, business profit, gains) minus adjustments such as deductible IRA or HSA contributions and student loan interest gives adjusted gross income, AGI. From AGI you subtract either the standard deduction or your itemized deductions, whichever is larger, and since 2025 the Schedule 1-A deductions as well. What remains is taxable income, which the brackets turn into tax: ordinary income through the seven rates, long-term gains and qualified dividends through the 0%, 15% and 20% rates of the capital gains table. Credits come last and reduce the tax itself, dollar for dollar; refundable ones can exceed it and come back as a refund. Withholding and estimated payments are then compared with what is owed.

Several limits are measured on modified AGI rather than taxable income, which is why the same deduction can be worth its full amount to one household and nothing to another: the tips and overtime deductions phase out above $150,000 ($300,000 joint), the senior deduction above $75,000 ($150,000 joint), the Roth IRA contribution between $153,000 and $168,000 for a single filer.

Public Law 119-21 created four deductions for 2025 through 2028 and the IRS gathered them on a new form, Schedule 1-A. They are claimed whether or not you itemize, and none of them lowers AGI. Each has a cap and its own phase-out arithmetic, written line by line on the form. The tips deduction and the overtime deduction lose $100 for each full $1,000 of modified AGI over the threshold. The car loan interest deduction loses $200 for each $1,000 or fraction of it, a steeper and rounded-up rule. The senior deduction loses 6% of every dollar above $75,000 ($150,000 joint) and disappears at $175,000 for one person.

What a deduction saves is the deduction times your marginal rate, not the deduction itself. A server in the 12% bracket who deducts $15,000 of tips saves about $1,800 of federal income tax; the 7.65% of Social Security and Medicare on those tips is still due. The overtime deduction covers only the premium part the Fair Labor Standards Act requires, the "half" of time and a half: $15,000 of overtime pay at time and a half holds $5,000 of qualified premium, the example the IRS itself uses in Notice 2025-69. Married couples must file jointly to claim any of the four.

Tax year 2025 was the first under Public Law 119-21, signed in July 2025 after Rev. Proc. 2024-40 had set the year's figures. The law rewrote some of them retroactively: the standard deduction became $15,750, $23,625 and $31,500 instead of the $15,000, $22,500 and $30,000 printed in October 2024, the child tax credit rose to $2,200, the SALT cap to $40,000, and all four Schedule 1-A deductions applied from January 1, 2025. The brackets stayed those of Rev. Proc. 2024-40, from 10% up to $11,925 single. Every calculator here has a tax-year switch, so an amended 2025 return or a late one under extension uses the right table.

Retirement and health accounts have their own 2026 figures, published separately: Notice 2025-67 for plans and IRAs, Rev. Proc. 2025-19 for HSAs, Rev. Proc. 2025-32 for health FSAs. A worker can defer $24,500 into a 401(k), plus $8,000 from age 50 and $11,250 instead between 60 and 63; an IRA takes $7,500, plus $1,100 at 50. The 401(k) limit applies to calendar-year payroll and closes on December 31; the IRA and HSA limits for 2026 stay open until April 15, 2027. The Roth IRA income limit and the IRA deduction ranges depend on modified AGI, so the same contribution can be fully deductible, partly deductible or Roth-ineligible depending on the year's income.

They estimate the federal income tax rules most households meet; they are not tax software. They do not prepare or file a return, do not handle state income taxes, and leave out some rules on purpose: the alternative minimum tax inside the refund estimator, self-employment tax there too, the education credits, the foreign tax credit, the net operating loss. Where a page simplifies, it says how. The IRS tax table used under $100,000 of taxable income rounds to $50 bands, so a return can differ by a few dollars from the rate schedule used here. The full list is on the method page, and the about page says who publishes the site and how to report an error.