Tax — Income & Capital Gains Calculators
Focused on what you actually keep — marginal rates, paycheck deductions, investment gains, and self-employment obligations. Four calculators for employees, investors, and freelancers alike.
Taxes touch nearly every other financial decision on this site — what you take home affects what you can save, what you owe on gains affects when you sell, and self-employment tax changes what a freelancer actually needs to charge. The Tax category covers four calculators addressing the most common tax questions outside of full return preparation.
The Tax Bracket calculator shows both your marginal rate (the rate on your next dollar earned) and your effective rate (what you actually pay as a percentage of total income) based on income and filing status — a distinction that's frequently misunderstood and leads to bad decisions around raises or bonuses. The Take-Home Pay calculator translates gross salary into an estimated net paycheck after taxes and standard deductions, useful for comparing job offers or budgeting against real take-home numbers rather than gross salary.
The Capital Gains calculator calculates tax owed on investment profits, distinguishing between short-term and long-term holding periods — a difference that can significantly change the tax bill on the same gain depending on how long the asset was held.
For freelancers and independent contractors, the Self-Employment Tax calculator estimates quarterly tax obligations, accounting for the additional self-employment tax that traditional employees don't pay directly — a frequent surprise for anyone newly self-employed.