What actually reaches your account after federal tax, Social Security, Medicare, and Illinois’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.
Illinois guide
Illinois runs two different tax systems and calls them one.
On working income it is among the heavier states. A flat 4.95% applies above a $2,925 exemption, which is small enough that Illinois effectively taxes from the first dollar. At $30,000 the effective rate is already 4.47% — higher than what several states charge at $175,000.
On retirement income it is among the lightest in the country. Social Security, pensions, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, IRAs and Roth conversions are all fully exempt. Not capped, not age-gated, not means-tested. Exempt.
On $85,000 a single filer pays $4,063 and takes home $64,565.
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; Illinois's rate, exemption and retirement rules come from this site's own sourced 50-state dataset, citing 35 ILCS 5/201(b) and the Department of Revenue's Booklet IL-700-T and Form IL-1040 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 and sales tax are discussed qualitatively.
Across incomes, single filer:
Look at how little that effective rate moves. From $30,000 to $175,000 the salary rises nearly sixfold and the effective rate rises from 4.47% to 4.87% — four tenths of a percentage point.
That is what a flat rate behind a $2,925 exemption looks like. In Georgia, whose rate is nearly identical at 4.99%, the effective rate runs from 2.50% to 4.56% across the same range, because Georgia shelters $15,000 first. The rates differ by four hundredths of a point; the bills at $30,000 differ by 79%.
Illinois is a single-rate state by constitutional constraint rather than by legislative preference, and the distinction shapes its politics.
Read the full Illinois guide →15 min read · Updated 2026-09-01