Free Income Tax Calculator
Estimate your US federal income tax, marginal rate and effective rate using 2024 IRS tax brackets. Free. No signup required.
| Bracket | Rate | Taxed at This Rate | Tax Owed |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0.00 – $11,600.00 | 10% | $11,600.00 | $1,160.00 |
| $11,600.00 – $47,150.00 | 12% | $35,550.00 | $4,266.00 |
| $47,150.00 – $100,525.00 | 22% | $27,850.00 | $6,127.00 |
Your income isn't taxed at one flat rate — each bracket only taxes the dollars that fall inside it, which is why your 15.4% effective rate lands well below your 22% marginal (top) rate.
- Marginal Tax Rate22%
- Effective Tax Rate15.4%
2024 US federal brackets on taxable income — ignores the standard deduction, credits and state tax, so your actual bill will differ.
About the Free Income Tax Calculator
The most common misunderstanding about US federal income tax is thinking your whole income gets taxed at your top bracket's rate. It doesn't. The federal system is progressive and marginal: income is sliced into brackets, and each slice is taxed only at that bracket's rate — moving into a higher bracket only raises the rate on the income above that threshold, never on the dollars you already earned below it.
This calculator walks your income through the actual bracket structure so you can see your marginal rate (what the next dollar you earn is taxed at) alongside your effective rate (what you actually pay as a share of your whole income) — two numbers that are often confused for each other but usually differ substantially.
It's built for anyone estimating a tax bill before filing, sanity-checking a paycheck withholding, or just trying to understand where a raise actually lands them. Income numbers are about as sensitive as financial data gets, so every calculation runs locally in your browser — nothing you enter here is sent anywhere or stored.
How it’s calculated
The calculator walks your taxable income through each bracket from the bottom up. The first slice of income (up to the first threshold) is taxed at the lowest rate; the next slice (between the first and second thresholds) is taxed at the next rate, and so on, stopping once your income is fully accounted for — the bracket table above the results shows exactly which slice was taxed at which rate.
Your marginal rate is simply the rate on the bracket your last dollar of income falls into. Your effective rate is total tax divided by total income — a blended average that's always lower than your marginal rate whenever more than one bracket is involved, which for most incomes, it is.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my effective tax rate lower than my tax bracket?
Because only the income inside your top bracket is taxed at that bracket's rate — every dollar below it was already taxed at the lower rates for its own bracket. Your effective rate blends all of those rates together, so it always comes out below your marginal (top) bracket rate.
If a raise pushes me into a higher bracket, will I take home less overall?
No — that's a common myth. Only the portion of income that falls above the new bracket threshold is taxed at the higher rate; every dollar you were already earning keeps being taxed the same as before, so a raise never reduces your total take-home pay.
Does this include the standard deduction or tax credits?
No — this estimates tax on taxable income directly, after any deductions you'd already have applied. Your actual bill will differ once the standard deduction (or itemized deductions) and any credits you qualify for are factored in.
Does this account for state income tax?
No, this is federal only. State income tax rules vary enormously — some states have no income tax at all, others have their own progressive brackets or a flat rate — so a state estimate needs to come from a separate, state-specific calculation.
What's the difference between filing single and married filing jointly here?
Married filing jointly uses wider bracket thresholds than filing single, roughly (though not exactly) double in most brackets, which is why combining two incomes under joint brackets doesn't simply add each partner's single-filer tax together.
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