Massachusetts taxes wages at a flat 5%, and shelters almost nothing beneath it. There is no standard deduction; the only across-the-board subtraction is a $4,400 personal exemption, which is roughly a quarter of what the federal standard deduction shelters.
The result is a bill that is higher than a 5% rate sounds, and an effective rate that barely moves with income.
On $85,000 a single filer pays $4,030 and takes home $64,598.
A note before you start. This is general education, not tax advice. Federal figures are tax year 2026, from IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32 and the Social Security Administration; Massachusetts's rate, exemption, capital gains rates and retirement rules come from this site's own sourced 50-state dataset, citing M.G.L. chapter 62 and the Department of Revenue's Form 1 instructions. Every dollar figure is computed by the same engine the site's calculators use, on a single filer with no dependents or pre-tax deferrals unless stated. Property tax is discussed qualitatively.
1. What Massachusetts takes
| Amount on $85,000 | |
|---|---|
| Gross salary | $85,000 |
| Federal income tax | −$9,870 |
| Social Security (6.2%) | −$5,270 |
| Medicare (1.45%) | −$1,233 |
| Massachusetts income tax | −$4,030 |
| Take-home | $64,598 |
Across incomes, single filer:
| Salary | Massachusetts tax | Effective MA rate | Take-home |
|---|---|---|---|
| $30,000 | $1,280 | 4.27% | $24,005 |
| $45,000 | $2,030 | 4.51% | $36,308 |
| $60,000 | $2,780 | 4.63% | $47,610 |
| $85,000 | $4,030 | 4.74% | $64,598 |
| $120,000 | $5,780 | 4.82% | $87,470 |
| $175,000 | $8,530 | 4.87% | $122,349 |
The effective rate moves six tenths of a point across that entire range. From $30,000 to $175,000 — nearly six times the salary — it goes from 4.27% to 4.87%.
That is what a flat rate behind a $4,400 exemption produces. Massachusetts is a genuinely flat tax in practice as well as in name, which very few states manage: most have a deduction large enough to make the effective rate climb noticeably.
Run your own salary against Massachusetts's flat rate2. The 9% surtax, and who actually pays it
Massachusetts voters approved the Fair Share Amendment in 2022, adding a surtax on high incomes. The combined rate above the threshold is 9% — the flat 5% plus a 4-point surtax.
The threshold is $1,107,750 of taxable income, indexed annually.
Three things worth understanding about it:
Almost nobody pays it. The threshold is above a million dollars of taxable income, so it reaches a very small fraction of Massachusetts filers. Every figure in this article is well below it.
It applies to the excess only. Someone with $1.2 million of taxable income pays 5% on the first $1,107,750 and 9% on the remaining $92,250 — not 9% on the whole. That is how a marginal rate works and it is routinely misdescribed.
It reaches one-off events, not just high salaries. A business sale, the exercise of a large equity position, or the sale of a long-held property can push a household above the threshold in a single year even if their ordinary income is nowhere near it. That is the group for whom the surtax is a live planning question, and it is a much broader group than "millionaires."
The threshold is not doubled for a married couple. It is the same figure for every filing status, which means two spouses each earning $600,000 pay the surtax where two single people in the same positions would not.
3. Short-term gains at 8.5%, which most states do not do
This is Massachusetts's most distinctive tax feature and it catches people out.
Massachusetts splits income into parts. Long-term capital gains are Part B income taxed at the ordinary 5% rate under M.G.L. c. 62 §4(c) — which is why the dataset records Massachusetts's capital gains treatment as "ordinary."
Short-term capital gains — assets held one year or less — are Part A income, taxed at 8.5%.
That rate was reduced from 12% by 2023 legislation, so any source quoting 12% is out of date — but 8.5% is still 3.5 points above the ordinary rate, and above the rate on long-term gains.
| Realised gain of $50,000 | Massachusetts tax |
|---|---|
| Held more than one year | $2,500 (5%) |
| Held one year or less | $4,250 (8.5%) |
The holding period is worth $1,750 on a $50,000 gain, on top of whatever the federal difference between short- and long-term treatment costs.
Two practical consequences:
Active trading is more expensive in Massachusetts than almost anywhere else. Most states tax short and long gains identically. Here the state adds its own penalty on top of the federal one.
A single day matters. Selling on day 365 rather than day 366 changes the Massachusetts rate from 8.5% to 5% as well as changing the federal treatment. That is the kind of thing worth a calendar entry.
4. Filing jointly
| Salary | Single MA tax | Joint MA tax | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| $30,000 | $1,280 | $1,060 | $220 |
| $45,000 | $2,030 | $1,810 | $220 |
| $60,000 | $2,780 | $2,560 | $220 |
| $85,000 | $4,030 | $3,810 | $220 |
| $120,000 | $5,780 | $5,560 | $220 |
| $175,000 | $8,530 | $8,310 | $220 |
$220 at every income, being 5% of the extra $4,400 of exemption.
There is nothing else to double. No brackets, no standard deduction. Massachusetts's joint benefit is among the smallest in the country — larger than Illinois's $145 and Arkansas's $97, and a fraction of Hawaii's $1,587.
And the surtax threshold does not double either, as section 2 noted — so for very high earners, marriage in Massachusetts is a net negative on the state tax bill.
5. What the paycheck actually looks like
On $85,000 as a single filer:
| Pay schedule | Gross per cheque | Net per cheque |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly (52) | $1,634.62 | $1,242.26 |
| Biweekly (26) | $3,269.23 | $2,484.52 |
| Semi-monthly (24) | $3,541.67 | $2,691.56 |
| Monthly (12) | $7,083.33 | $5,383.13 |
Biweekly and semi-monthly are not the same thing. Biweekly is 26 cheques — every other Friday — so two months a year carry three paydays. Semi-monthly is 24, on fixed dates, so every month carries exactly two. The annual total is identical; the monthly cash flow is not, and a biweekly earner budgeting on "two cheques a month" is under-counting by $4,969 a year.
Form M-4 is Massachusetts's withholding exemption certificate. Because the exemption is small and the rate is flat, the difference between claiming an exemption and not claiming one is $220 a year — the M-4 decision moves less money in Massachusetts than the equivalent decision in almost any other state.
One line that does matter: Massachusetts's Paid Family and Medical Leave contribution is withheld from wages separately from income tax, and it is not in the figures above. It is a small percentage of earnings up to the Social Security wage base, and it appears on your pay stub as its own line.
Withholding is an estimate, not the tax. Over-withholding produces a refund; under-withholding a bill.
6. No local income tax, and it is constitutionally impossible
No Massachusetts municipality levies a personal income tax, and none constitutionally can.
Amendment Article XLIV of the Massachusetts Constitution grants the income-tax power to the General Court alone and requires that any income tax be "levied at a uniform rate throughout the commonwealth" upon incomes derived from the same class of property.
Two things follow, and they are stronger than the usual answer:
A city income tax would violate the uniformity requirement by definition. If Boston levied one, income earned in Boston would be taxed at a different rate from income earned in Worcester, which the constitution forbids. There is no route to a local income tax that does not require a constitutional amendment.
The same uniformity clause is why the 9% surtax required an amendment. A graduated rate is not a uniform rate, so Massachusetts could not simply legislate a millionaire's bracket — it had to change the constitution, which is what the 2022 Fair Share Amendment did.
A Massachusetts take-home figure is complete as stated, which is a real advantage against New York City, Philadelphia, Cleveland or Baltimore for anyone comparing metropolitan areas.
Massachusetts municipalities are funded by property tax, and Proposition 2½ limits how fast a municipality's total property tax levy may grow — 2.5% a year plus new growth, with overrides requiring a local vote. That constraint shapes municipal finance across the state and is the reason override votes are a recurring feature of town meeting politics.
7. Social Security, exempt for an unusual reason
Social Security benefits are fully exempt in Massachusetts at every income level.
The mechanism is unusual and it explains a second-order consequence. Most states that exempt benefits do so by subtracting them after they arrive through federal income. Massachusetts never adopted IRC section 86 — the federal provision that makes a portion of benefits taxable — so the benefits are simply not part of Massachusetts gross income in the first place.
There is no income-based phase-in, no partial inclusion, and no age test.
One consequence worth knowing: because benefits are excluded rather than subtracted, Medicare premiums withheld from them are not deductible in Massachusetts either. You cannot deduct an expense against income the state does not count. That is a small item and it is the kind of asymmetry that surprises people who expect exclusion and deduction to be independent.
8. Pensions and 401(k)s: a sharp public–private split
Massachusetts state and local contributory pensions are fully exempt under M.G.L. c. 62 §2(a)(2)(E), and the exemption extends to a surviving spouse.
The trade is that employee contributions are added back to Massachusetts income when made. A Massachusetts public employee pays state tax on their pension contributions during their working life and pays nothing on the benefit in retirement. That is a coherent design — tax once, at the front — and it is the mirror image of how a 401(k) works federally.
Private pensions and annuities are taxable at 5%.
401(k) and 403(b) distributions are fully taxable at 5%.
Traditional IRAs are the exception, and this calculator overstates them
Massachusetts never allowed a deduction for traditional IRA contributions. Every dollar you put into a traditional IRA was already taxed by Massachusetts on the way in, which means it created Massachusetts basis.
Distributions are therefore excluded from Massachusetts income until that previously-taxed basis is recovered.
| Source | Massachusetts treatment |
|---|---|
| Social Security | Exempt |
| Massachusetts state or local contributory pension | Exempt |
| Military retirement | Exempt |
| Private pension or annuity | Taxed at 5% |
| 401(k), 403(b) | Taxed at 5% |
| Traditional IRA | Excluded until basis is recovered, then taxed |
The figures in this article do not model that basis recovery, because it depends on your own contribution history — which the calculator does not have and cannot guess. A Massachusetts retiree drawing on a traditional IRA will very often owe less than a general calculator shows, and the size of the difference depends entirely on how much they contributed over the years.
If a meaningful share of your retirement savings is in a traditional IRA rather than a 401(k), that distinction is worth working out properly. It is one of the few places where a state's rules make the same dollar of retirement savings worth materially more depending on which wrapper it sat in.
9. Massachusetts's other payroll deductions
The income tax is not the only line the commonwealth adds to a Massachusetts pay stub, and the others are easy to mistake for it.
Paid Family and Medical Leave. Massachusetts operates a state PFML programme funded by a contribution on wages up to the Social Security wage base, split between employee and employer, with the split differing between the medical-leave and family-leave portions. It appears as its own line on your pay stub, separate from income tax withholding, and it is not included in any figure in this article.
It is not a tax on income in the sense the rest of this article uses. It is a contribution to an insurance programme you can draw on — up to a set number of weeks of paid leave for your own serious health condition, for bonding with a new child, or for caring for a family member.
Employers with fewer than 25 covered individuals do not pay the employer share, though their employees still contribute their portion.
Unemployment insurance is employer-paid in Massachusetts, so it does not reduce your take-home at all, but it is part of what you cost.
Why this matters for comparison. When you compare a Massachusetts offer with one in a state without a PFML programme, the Massachusetts pay stub has one more deduction on it — and one more benefit behind it. A pure take-home comparison counts the deduction and misses the benefit, which understates Massachusetts by the value of the coverage.
Several other states run comparable programmes — including Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and Washington — so the comparison is only lopsided against states that have none.
10. Where Massachusetts ranks
At $85,000, Massachusetts's $4,030 is thirty-fourth of the 41 income-tax states.
| State | Tax on $85,000 |
|---|---|
| Connecticut | $3,925 |
| New York | $3,993 |
| Vermont | $4,005 |
| Massachusetts | $4,030 |
| Illinois | $4,063 |
| Maine | $4,128 |
Against its neighbours:
| Salary | MA | NH | RI | CT | VT | NY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $30,000 | $1,280 | $0 | $508 | $425 | $1,005 | $1,023 |
| $45,000 | $2,030 | $0 | $1,071 | $1,775 | $1,508 | $1,833 |
| $85,000 | $4,030 | $0 | $2,571 | $3,925 | $4,005 | $3,993 |
| $175,000 | $8,530 | $0 | $6,711 | $9,250 | $10,498 | $9,285 |
Massachusetts is the most expensive of the six at $30,000, because its tiny exemption bites hardest where income is smallest. At $175,000 it is the cheapest of the five taxing states, because its flat rate stops climbing where the graduated states keep going.
That crossover is the single most useful thing on this page for anyone choosing between New England states. Massachusetts is a bad deal at $30,000 and a good one at $175,000, relative to Connecticut, Vermont and New York.
New Hampshire takes nothing, and the border is short. Section 6 of the New Hampshire article works through why that saving is smaller in practice than it looks — New Hampshire's property tax is among the highest in the country, and Massachusetts taxes income earned by nonresidents working within the state regardless of where they sleep.
Rhode Island is cheaper than Massachusetts at every level shown, which surprises people who group the three southern New England states together.
11. What you can control
Pre-tax deferrals save 5% at state level on top of your federal rate. A $10,000 traditional 401(k) contribution saves an $85,000 earner $2,200 federally plus $500 in Massachusetts tax.
But traditional IRA contributions save nothing at state level, because Massachusetts never allowed the deduction — see section 8. That asymmetry between a 401(k) and a traditional IRA is real and it runs in both directions: no deduction going in, no tax coming out until basis is recovered.
Holding for long-term treatment is worth 3.5 points here, which is more than in almost any other state. See section 3.
HSA contributions through payroll cut federal tax, Massachusetts tax and FICA. On $4,400 that is roughly $968 federal, $220 Massachusetts and $337 FICA — about $1,525, or 35% of the amount contributed.
And if you are anywhere near the surtax threshold, the timing of a large one-off gain matters enormously — spreading a business sale across two tax years can keep both years below $1,107,750 where a single year would not be.
Frequently asked questions
What is Massachusetts's income tax rate? A flat 5% on wages, plus a 4-point surtax on taxable income above $1,107,750, giving a 9% rate on the excess. Short-term capital gains are taxed separately at 8.5%.
What is take-home pay on $85,000 in Massachusetts? $64,598 for a single filer, after $9,870 federal income tax, $6,503 FICA and $4,030 Massachusetts income tax.
Does Massachusetts have a standard deduction? No. A $4,400 personal exemption is the only across-the-board subtraction, which is why the effective rate at $85,000 is 4.74% rather than something much lower.
Why are short-term capital gains taxed at 8.5%? Massachusetts splits income into parts, and short-term gains are Part A income with their own rate. That rate was reduced from 12% by 2023 legislation, so older sources overstate it — but 8.5% is still 3.5 points above the ordinary rate.
Can a Massachusetts city tax my income? No, and it is constitutionally impossible. Amendment Article XLIV requires any income tax to be levied at a uniform rate throughout the commonwealth, which a municipal tax would violate by definition.
Does Massachusetts tax Social Security? No. Massachusetts never adopted the federal provision that makes benefits taxable, so they are not part of Massachusetts gross income at all. One consequence: Medicare premiums withheld from them are not deductible either.
Does Massachusetts tax my 401(k) or IRA? A 401(k) or 403(b) is taxed at 5%. A traditional IRA is different — Massachusetts never allowed a deduction for contributions, so distributions are excluded until your previously-taxed basis is recovered. General calculators overstate the tax on IRA withdrawals for that reason.
Is Massachusetts expensive compared with its neighbours? It depends on income. At $30,000 it is the most expensive of the six New England states plus New York. At $175,000 it is the cheapest of the five that tax income, because its flat rate stops climbing where their graduated schedules keep going.
What to do next
Massachusetts's income tax is simple and unforgiving at the bottom. The two features actually worth acting on are the short-term gains rate and, in retirement, the IRA basis rule.
- Massachusetts take-home pay calculator — your salary with every deduction shown separately.
- Your Paycheck in the USA in 2026 — all fifty states on one salary.
- Take-Home Pay in New Hampshire — the no-income-tax neighbour, and why the saving is smaller than it looks.
- Marginal vs Effective Tax Rate — why 5% is not quite what you pay.
- 50/30/20 budget calculator — built on take-home rather than salary.
Every figure on this site is sourced and dated. How we source every number.
Figures in this article are illustrations computed by this site's own tax engine for tax year 2026, on a single filer with no dependents or pre-tax deferrals unless stated. Federal figures come from IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32 and the Social Security Administration; Massachusetts's rate, surtax, exemption, capital gains rates and retirement rules from this site's sourced 50-state dataset, citing M.G.L. chapter 62 and the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. Traditional IRA basis recovery is not modelled and would reduce the tax shown on IRA distributions. The Paid Family and Medical Leave contribution and property tax are discussed qualitatively rather than computed. This is general education and not tax advice; consult a licensed tax professional for your own situation.