Methodology, verification and corrections

Takehome is one person's calculator, not a tax firm. What it offers instead of credentials is a method you can inspect: where every number comes from, what the arithmetic does and does not include, how a figure is checked before it is published, and what happens when one turns out to be wrong. This page sets out those rules. The per-state dates and source links are on the sources page; the arithmetic, step by step, in How it works.

What the calculator computes, and what it leaves out

For a gross annual salary, a filing status and a place (29 states and one city so far), the engine applies, in order: federal income tax after the standard deduction; the state's own rules (nothing, a flat rate, or progressive brackets with the state's deduction or exemption); Social Security up to the annual wage base; and Medicare, with the additional Medicare tax above its threshold. On a city page the city's resident income tax is added on top. Net pay plus every tax always equals gross: a test enforces it.

Included only where the state's basic computation requires it: a credit that every filer gets as part of the rate schedule (Iowa, Utah, Oregon and Connecticut), and the subtraction of federal income tax from the state base (Missouri, Alabama and Oregon). Deductions or exemptions that shrink as income rises are modelled where the state has them.

Deliberately left out, on every page: credits that depend on your circumstances (children, education, earned income), itemised deductions, pre-tax contributions (401(k), HSA, health premiums), post-tax deductions, a second household income, and local income taxes except on the city pages. Employee-paid state programmes such as disability or paid-leave premiums are described and quantified on the relevant state page but are not subtracted from the estimate. Each page says what its state leaves out. The full list is in the disclaimer.

How a figure is verified before it is published

1. Primary source only. A bracket, a deduction, a rate or a wage base is read from the body that sets it: the IRS, the Social Security Administration, the state's department of revenue, or the statute itself when the department has not published the year yet. Blogs, payroll vendors and aggregators are never the source of a figure.
2. Second source, always. The figure is compared with an independent second source (the Tax Foundation, a second official document). If the two disagree, the state is not published until the difference is explained from a dated primary document. Georgia, for example, is still unpublished for exactly that reason.
3. Control figures locked in tests. For each state, tax amounts worked out by hand from the source are written into the site's automated test suite. A later edit to the engine or the data that moves one of those amounts fails the build.
4. The date means a re-read, not an edit. The "checked on" date shown on every page moves only when the source has actually been opened again and compared. Rewriting a paragraph does not move it.
5. Latest published year, said out loud. When a state has not published its 2026 amounts, the page uses the latest year it has published and says so in a visible note until the new figures appear.
6. Worked examples come from the engine. Every dollar figure in the guides and in the explanatory text is computed by the same code as the calculator at build time, never typed by hand, so prose and calculator cannot drift apart.

Who does the checking

Jose Manuel Gómez, an independent developer, builds the site, reads the sources, maintains the engine and its tests, and answers the mailbox. No accountant or tax adviser reviews the figures, and the site does not claim otherwise: that is why the sources are linked on every page, so that anyone can repeat the check. Nothing here is tax or financial advice.

Corrections policy

A wrong figure on a paycheck page is the most serious defect this site can have, and it is treated as one.

• How to report: write to [email protected] or use the contact page. Say which page, which figure, and if you can, the official document that contradicts it.
• What happens next: the source is re-read, normally within a week. If the report is right, the data is corrected, the control figures in the tests are updated, the "checked on" date moves, and the change is logged below with the old and new values. If the figure was right, you get a reply saying why, with the source.
• No silent edits. A change to a published tax amount is never made without an entry in the log below. Changes of wording that do not touch a figure are not logged.
• Scheduled re-checks. Federal figures and the Social Security wage base are re-read when the IRS and the SSA publish the next year, and every state is re-read for the new tax year before January, which is when most people look at their first paycheck of the year.

Funding and independence

The site is paid for by its operator. It carries no advertising at the moment; if display advertising is switched on in future it will be labelled as such, and no advertiser, affiliate or sponsor has any say over which states are covered or what any figure says. The calculator runs in your browser and the salary you type is never sent anywhere (privacy).

Changes to the tax tables

Every change to a published figure since the site was built, newest first, together with each state and city as it was added. Last entry: October 14, 2026.

This page is the editorial policy of Takehome, operated by Jose Manuel Gómez. Legal and contact details are on the privacy page.