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InvestingLite

What actually reaches your bank?

Gross to net, with the full breakdown — plus the figure payslips never print: what the next unit of salary is really worth.

Where you pay tax

Sets the currency too — tax bands only mean anything in their own currency.

Before anything is taken off.

$
401(k) contribution

That is $4,000 a year.

%
More options(1)

Anything else taken before tax. Treated the same way as the pension.

$

Take-home pay per month — United States (federal)

$5,166

On $80,000 you keep $61,990 a year — 77% of gross. Of every extra $100 you negotiate, $70 is left after tax — the next unit of salary is taxed at 29.6%, not the 17.5% you pay on average.

Net per month
$5,166
Effective rate
17.5%
Marginal rate
29.6%

Where the money goes

LinePer monthPer year
Gross pay$6,667$80,000
Income tax-$658-$7,890
Social Security-$413-$4,960
Medicare-$97-$1,160
401(k) contribution-$333-$4,000
Reaches your bank$5,166$61,990

The 401(k) contribution is shown as a deduction because it leaves your pay, but it is not tax — it is still your money, just somewhere else. A traditional 401(k) reduces income subject to federal income tax, but NOT the earnings subject to Social Security and Medicare. Treating it as reducing both would overstate your take-home.

Shown in USD because tax bands only mean anything in their own currency. This page ignores the currency selector in the header — the site-wide setting changes formatting only and performs no conversion, so applying it here would put the wrong symbol on a real statutory figure.

The figures this uses

Tax year 2026 — last verified 2026-08-30

FigureValueSource
Standard deduction$16,100IRS
Income tax bands10% from $0 to $12,400 · 12% from $12,400 to $50,400 · 22% from $50,400 to $105,700 · 24% from $105,700 to $201,775 · 32% from $201,775 to $256,225 · 35% from $256,225 to $640,600 · 37% above $640,600IRS
Social Security6.2% from $0 to $184,500 · 0% above $184,500Social Security Administration
Medicare1.45% from $0 to $200,000 · 2.35% above $200,000IRS

Not included, and it matters:

  • State and local income tax — substantial in most states, zero in a few
  • Head of household filing status, pending a full published bracket schedule
  • Self-employment tax (this models an employee on payroll)
  • Itemised deductions, tax credits, and the Alternative Minimum Tax
  • HSA, FSA and other pre-tax benefits beyond the "other pre-tax" input
  • The additional standard deduction for filers who are 65 or over, or blind

The number your payslip never prints

Every payslip tells you what you kept. None of them tell you what the next pound or dollar is worth, and that is the only figure that matters when you are deciding whether a raise is worth pushing for, whether an extra shift pays, or whether a bonus is as good as it sounds.

The two rates are different and the gap between them is large. Your effective rate is the average across everything you earned — it is low, because the first slice of income is taxed lightly or not at all. Your marginal rate is what applies to the last slice, and it is the one that decides what a raise is actually worth.

Why a higher band never leaves you worse off

The most persistent myth in personal finance is that crossing into a higher band can reduce your take-home pay. It cannot, and the arithmetic here demonstrates why: each rate applies only to the slice of income inside its own band, never to the whole. Earn one unit more and you keep less of that unit — never less in total.

There is one honest exception, and it is not a band at all. Where an allowance is withdrawn as income rises, the effective cost of each extra unit in that stretch is far above any published headline rate. This calculator measures the marginal rate rather than reading it off a table, so it shows that stretch correctly instead of reporting the headline band.

What a pension contribution actually does

It reduces the income your income tax is charged on — but it does not reduce the earnings your social contributions are charged on. That distinction is where a lot of take-home calculators quietly overstate the benefit. Both jurisdictions here treat it the same way, and the figures table says so explicitly.

It is also worth being clear that a pension contribution is not tax. It leaves your pay, so it appears as a deduction, but it is still your money — it has simply gone somewhere you cannot spend it yet. The breakdown separates the two for that reason.

What this deliberately does not model

Tax is jurisdiction-specific, changes annually, and is full of provisions that apply to some people and not others. Rather than approximating those, this tool states exactly what it covers and leaves the rest alone — a wrong tax figure is worse than an absent one, because it is confidently wrong and you have no way to tell.

The exclusions are listed on the page itself, under the figures table, for whichever jurisdiction you have selected. The largest by far is US state and local income tax, which this does not touch at all.

Now you know what arrives

Take-home pay is the input to almost everything else on this site. Once you know what actually reaches your account:

Common questions

Why is my actual payslip different?
Most often because of something this deliberately does not model — US state and local tax, a UK student loan repayment, a tax code adjustment carrying something forward from a previous year, benefits in kind, or salary sacrifice rather than a net-pay pension. It also assumes your income is level across the year, whereas real payroll operates cumulatively month by month.
What is the difference between effective and marginal rate?
The effective rate is the average across everything you earned — total tax divided by gross. The marginal rate is what applies to the next unit. The effective rate tells you what happened; the marginal rate tells you what a raise is worth. They are never the same under a progressive system, and the marginal rate is always higher.
Can a pay rise ever leave me worse off?
Not through tax bands — each rate applies only to income inside its own band, so more gross always means more net. What can genuinely reduce your total position is a means-tested benefit or allowance withdrawn as income rises, which is a separate mechanism from a tax band and is not the thing people usually mean.
Does increasing my pension contribution save social contributions too?
Not in either jurisdiction modelled here. A US 401(k) reduces income subject to federal income tax but not the earnings subject to Social Security and Medicare, and a UK net-pay pension reduces income tax but not National Insurance. Salary sacrifice in the UK works differently and would also reduce National Insurance, but it is not modelled here.
Why can I not contribute my whole salary to a pension?
Because social contributions are charged on gross pay and cannot be contributed away, there has to be enough left to pay them. Real payroll applies the same cap. Where your requested contribution exceeds what is possible, the calculator reduces it and says so rather than reporting a negative salary.
Is this tax advice?
No. It is arithmetic applied to published statutory figures for the stated tax year, covering the specific things listed on the page and nothing else. Individual circumstances vary enormously, and anything that actually matters should be checked with someone qualified in your jurisdiction.

Not tax advice. Figures are estimates based on published statutory rates for the tax year shown, and cover only the items listed on this page. Individual circumstances vary, tax rules change, and nothing here accounts for your personal situation.

Not advice. This tool applies arithmetic to assumptions you entered. It does not know your circumstances, your tax position or your goals, and it is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold anything. Past returns do not predict future ones, and no figure here is a forecast.

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