What actually reaches your account after federal tax, Social Security, Medicare, and Georgia’s own brackets — with every line shown separately, so you can check it against a real payslip.
One paycheck line by line, and the pay period in which Social Security stops and every remaining cheque gets bigger.
What a raise leaves you after tax, and what a bonus is withheld at versus what it actually costs.
The bracket ladder drawn out — every bracket, the income that landed in it, and why a raise can never leave you with less.
What actually comes out of an American paycheck in 2026 — federal brackets, FICA, and all fifty states' own rules — plus the take-home spread on one identical salary, computed rather than asserted.
A bonus arrives with a third missing and everyone concludes bonuses are taxed punitively. They are not. Withholding and tax are different things, and the difference comes back to you.
Convert every offer to take-home before you answer, match offers across state lines, and counter with scripts that work — with the arithmetic computed rather than asserted.
Self-employment tax is 14.13% of profit, not 15.3%. Price your rate, reserve on receipt, hit the safe harbour, and know when an S-corp is worth it — computed, not asserted.
Georgia guide
Georgia moved to a flat income tax and, unusually, did not use the move as cover for shrinking what it shelters. The rate is 4.99% and the standard deduction is $15,000 for a single filer — larger than all but a handful of states allow, and more than six times Arkansas's.
The result is that nobody in Georgia pays 4.99%. On $85,000 a single filer pays $3,493, an effective rate of 4.11%, and takes home $65,135.
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; Georgia's rate, deduction and retirement rules come from this site's own sourced 50-state dataset, citing O.C.G.A. Title 48 and the Department of Revenue's IT-511 booklet and Form 500. Every dollar figure is computed by the same engine the site's calculators use, on a single filer taking the standard deduction with no dependents or pre-tax deferrals unless stated. Sales tax and property tax are discussed qualitatively.
Across incomes, single filer:
The statutory rate is 4.99% and the effective rate never reaches it. At $175,000 it is 4.56%; at $30,000 it is exactly half the headline, at 2.50%. The gap is the $15,000 deduction, which is a large share of a small salary and a shrinking share of a large one.
That is what makes a flat tax progressive. Not the rate — the shelter beneath it.
A flat $748 at every income, and the arithmetic is clean: the joint standard deduction is $30,000 against $15,000 single, and 4.99% of the extra $15,000 is $748.50.
At $30,000 a couple filing jointly owes Georgia nothing, because $30,000 is exactly the joint deduction. Taxable income is zero.
Compare that constancy with a graduated state. Minnesota's joint benefit at $85,000 is $1,264 and grows with income, because the couple's income spreads across bracket thresholds that also doubled. Georgia has one bracket, so only the deduction can double, and its value is the same dollars at every income.
Read the full Georgia guide →16 min read · Updated 2026-09-01