How much of your paycheck will be left in 2016 after it gets processed through Uncle Sam's dirty rotten filthy stinking ape maw before you ever see it?
Well, that's one question that our latest tool can answer! Other questions we can help you answer include:
- How much take home money will I have each payday?
- How will that change if I get a raise?
- What if I boost my pre-tax 401(k) or 403(b) retirement plan contributions - how will that change my paycheck?
- Will I take a hit from the Additional Medicare Tax? The Medicare "contribution" that doesn't ever go into Medicare's trust funds?
- How would a flexible savings account for health care or dependent care expenses affect my take home pay?
Our tool below is designed to answer those questions for you, and probably a number of others that we haven't thought of that you might! Just enter the indicated information as it applies for you, and we'll do our best to estimate how much of the money you work hard to earn will still be in your possession after the federal government has withheld what it wants from your paycheck!
Now that we've given you a sense of how much money you'll have withheld in 2016 from each of your paychecks by the U.S. federal government, we should note that there are some really complicating factors that may come into play during the year depending upon how much you earn.
For example, in 2015, once you have earned over $118,500, you will no longer have the Social Security payroll tax of 6.2% of your income deducted from your paycheck. But then, by the time that happens, you'll have long been paying taxes on your income that are taxed at rates that are at least 10% higher than those paid by over half of all Americans.
There's also the complication provided by the so-called "Additional Medicare Tax" that your employer is required to begin withholding from your paycheck if, and as soon as, your year-to-date income rises above the $200,000 mark, which is part of the new income taxes imposed by the "Affordable Care Act" (a.k.a. "Obamacare"). Since the money collected through this 0.9% surtax on your income does not go to directly support the Medicare program, unlike the real Medicare payroll taxes paid by you and your employer, it is really best thought of as an additional income tax.
In the tool above, in case the amount of your annual 401(k) or 403(b) retirement savings contributions exceed the annual limits set by law, we've limited the results our tool provides to be those consistent with their statutory limits, and will do so as if you specifically set the percentage contributions for these contributions with that in mind. Also, our tool does not consider whether you might take advantage of the "catch-up" provisions in the law that are available to individuals Age 50 or older. Perhaps next year....
Elsewhere on the Web
There are other paycheck calculators like this on the Internet, including the very well done tools available at PaycheckCity.com. We really like PaycheckCity's calculators because they allow you to determine the amount of state income tax withholding that will be taken out of your paycheck separately from what the federal government takes.
Then again, if you live in one of the seven states that have no personal income tax for wage and salary income (Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington or Wyoming), our tool above will provide you with a very good estimate of your actual take-home pay. We'll also note that both New Hampshire and Tennessee do not tax wage and salary income, but they do both tax dividend and interest income. While that doesn't affect your paycheck (and our tool's results), it's something that may influence your income tax withholding decisions in these states.
Previously on Political Calculations
We've been in the business of calculating people's paychecks (not including state income tax withholding) since 2005!
- Your 2005 Paycheck
- Your 2006 Paycheck
- Your 2007 Paycheck
- Your 2008 Paycheck
- Your 2009 Paycheck
- Your Paycheck in 2010
- Your Paycheck in 2011
- Your Paycheck in 2012
- Your Paycheck in 2013: Part 1 - the "same as 2012" version.
- Your Paycheck in 2013: Part 2 - the "over the fiscal cliff" version.
- Your Paycheck in 2013: Part 3 - the "post-fiscal cliff deal" version.
- Your Paycheck in 2014
- Your Paycheck in 2015
- Your Paycheck in 2016
Labels: personal finance, taxes, tool
Welcome to the blogosphere's toolchest! Here, unlike other blogs dedicated to analyzing current events, we create easy-to-use, simple tools to do the math related to them so you can get in on the action too! If you would like to learn more about these tools, or if you would like to contribute ideas to develop for this blog, please e-mail us at:
ironman at politicalcalculations
Thanks in advance!
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