A gross paycheck loses between 14.2% and 24.1% to taxes alone in 2026, and the floor of that range is not a rate you choose. FICA takes a flat 7.65% (6.2% Social Security + 1.45% Medicare) off the top, federal income tax is stacked on it according to the Form W-4 you filed, and state income tax is added wherever your state charges one. Take a $78,000 salary paid biweekly — $3,000 a check, single, standard W-4, no state wage tax — and $549.88 is deducted every period: $320.38 of federal income tax, $186.00 of Social Security and $43.50 of Medicare. Net pay is $2,450.12, so 18.3% of the check never reaches you. Elective deductions land on top of that: a 5% traditional 401(k) lifts the total to $666.88 (22.2%), even though only $117 of that increase is money you actually stop receiving — the other $150 goes into your retirement account.
The four buckets every payroll deduction falls into
| Bucket | Lines it covers | Who decides the amount |
|---|---|---|
| Required taxes | Federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, state and local income tax | Congress, the IRS and your state |
| Elective pre-tax benefits | Traditional 401(k) or 403(b), health FSA, HSA, cafeteria-plan health premiums | You, at benefits enrollment |
| Post-tax benefits | Designated Roth 401(k), union dues, life insurance, charitable payroll giving | You, at enrollment |
| Court or agency orders | Child support, federal or state tax levies, creditor garnishment, defaulted student loans | A court or a government agency |
Only the first bucket is unavoidable, and only the second changes your taxable income; the other two come out of money you have already paid tax on.
FICA: 7.65% of every dollar, with one ceiling
- Social Security (OASDI) — 6.2%, capped. The tax applies only to the first $184,500 of wages paid in 2026, which is why the most an employee can contribute this year is $11,439.
- Medicare (HI) — 1.45%, uncapped. Every dollar of covered wages, all year, no matter how much you earn.
- Additional Medicare — 0.9%. Employers must withhold it once wages paid to you in the calendar year exceed $200,000, without regard to filing status.
Employer and employee each pay 6.2% + 1.45%, a combined 15.3% per dollar of wages. Nothing on a W-4 changes any of it.
The Social Security line is also the only deduction that disappears mid-year: once the year-to-date wage box reaches $184,500 the 6.2% stops, take-home pay rises and it is not a payroll error.
Federal income tax: annualize, subtract, bracket, divide
No rate sheet reproduces the federal line by hand, because it is progressive and it depends on the W-4 you filed. The IRS percentage method does it in four steps:
- Annualize the pay period: weekly × 52, biweekly × 26, semi-monthly × 24, monthly × 12.
- Subtract the standard deduction for your filing status: $16,100 single or married filing separately, $32,200 married filing jointly, $24,150 head of household for tax year 2026.
- Apply the 2026 brackets to what is left.
- Divide by the number of pay periods to get the amount for this paycheck.
| Taxable income (2026) | Single | Married filing jointly |
|---|---|---|
| 10% | up to $12,400 | up to $24,800 |
| 12% | $12,400 – $50,400 | $24,800 – $100,800 |
| 22% | $50,400 – $105,700 | $100,800 – $211,400 |
| 24% | $105,700 – $201,775 | $211,400 – $403,550 |
| 32% | $201,775 – $256,225 | $403,550 – $512,450 |
| 35% | $256,225 – $640,600 | $512,450 – $768,700 |
| 37% | over $640,600 | over $768,700 |
On the $78,000 example: $78,000 − $16,100 = $61,900 of taxable income. That is 10% on the first $12,400 ($1,240), 12% on the next $38,000 ($4,560) and 22% on the remaining $11,500 ($2,530) — $8,330 for the year, or $320.38 per biweekly check. The top dollar is taxed at 22% while the salary as a whole is taxed at 10.7%: brackets tax slices, not totals.
State and local income tax
State withholding is a second set of brackets layered on the federal one, and a few places add a local tax on top — New York City residents pay a city income tax, which is why the New York calculator here has its own checkbox for it. A handful of states don’t tax wage income at all; Texas, Florida and Washington are the three this site’s calculators return $0 for.
Pre-tax deductions and the FICA catch
A pre-tax deduction comes out before income tax is calculated, so a deferred dollar costs you less than a dollar of take-home pay. But “pre-tax” doesn’t mean “pre-payroll-tax”. The IRS is explicit about the biggest one: a traditional 401(k) elective deferral is not subject to income tax withholding at the time of deferral, but it is “included as wages subject to withholding for Social Security and Medicare taxes.” Your FICA line therefore does not move when you raise your deferral percentage — only the federal income tax line does.
That is the whole arithmetic of a 5% 401(k) at $78,000 biweekly: $3,000 × 5% = $150 deferred per check, $3,900 for the year, which pulls $858 out of your annual taxable income and out of your federal income tax — $33 per check.
| Biweekly check, $78,000 salary, single | No benefits | 5% traditional 401(k) | 10% traditional 401(k) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross wages | $3,000.00 | $3,000.00 | $3,000.00 |
| Federal income tax | −$320.38 | −$287.38 | −$254.38 |
| Social Security (6.2%) | −$186.00 | −$186.00 | −$186.00 |
| Medicare (1.45%) | −$43.50 | −$43.50 | −$43.50 |
| 401(k) deferral | — | −$150.00 | −$300.00 |
| Total deducted | $549.88 | $666.88 | $783.88 |
| % of gross | 18.3% | 22.2% | 26.1% |
| Net pay | $2,450.12 | $2,333.12 | $2,216.12 |
Read the last two rows together: doubling the deferral to 10% moves $300 a check into retirement savings and cuts take-home pay by only $234, because $66 of it is money that would have gone to the IRS anyway. Health premiums, an HSA and a health FSA work the same way, and whether a given benefit also lowers the Social Security and Medicare wage boxes depends on the plan — which is why your stub prints separate year-to-date figures for those two. If they sit below your gross wages, something you elected reduced the FICA base too.
How much is deducted at different salaries
Single filer, standard W-4, no pre-tax deductions, no state wage tax:
| Annual salary | Federal income tax | Social Security | Medicare | Total deducted | % of gross | Annual take-home |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $40,000 | $2,620 | $2,480 | $580 | $5,680 | 14.2% | $34,320 |
| $52,000 | $4,060 | $3,224 | $754 | $8,038 | 15.5% | $43,962 |
| $78,000 | $8,330 | $4,836 | $1,131 | $14,297 | 18.3% | $63,703 |
| $100,000 | $13,170 | $6,200 | $1,450 | $20,820 | 20.8% | $79,180 |
| $150,000 | $24,734 | $9,300 | $2,175 | $36,209 | 24.1% | $113,791 |
Two patterns matter. The dollars deducted grow faster than the salary — going from $52,000 to $78,000 is a 50% raise but a 78% bigger deduction, because the 22% bracket starts biting. And the percentage climbs steadily, because FICA is always 7.65% of gross while the progressive layer above it keeps widening.
Involuntary deductions and their legal ceilings
Court orders and agency levies don’t ask permission, but federal law caps them. Under the wage garnishment provisions of the Consumer Credit Protection Act, an ordinary garnishment can take the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage — $217.50 a week at the current $7.25 federal rate.
| Pay frequency | Disposable earnings below this: nothing can be garnished | Between: only the excess can be garnished | At or above: maximum 25% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly | $217.50 | $217.50 – $290.00 | $290.00 |
| Biweekly | $435.00 | $435.00 – $580.00 | $580.00 |
| Semi-monthly | $471.25 | $471.25 – $628.33 | $628.33 |
| Monthly | $942.50 | $942.50 – $1,256.66 | $1,256.66 |
Support orders are capped higher: up to 50% of disposable earnings if you are supporting another spouse or child and up to 60% if you are not, plus an additional 5% when the support payments are more than 12 weeks in arrears. Federal agencies collecting a defaulted non-tax debt — including guaranty agencies on defaulted student loans — can garnish up to 15%. The ceiling applies per pay period regardless of how many garnishment orders your employer receives.
“Disposable earnings” is not your net pay either. The Department of Labor defines it as what is left after legally required deductions: federal, state and local taxes, your share of Social Security, Medicare and state unemployment insurance, and any retirement withholdings the law requires. The deductions you chose — union dues, insurance premiums, charitable payroll giving, ordinary 401(k) contributions — are not subtracted when that ceiling is computed.
What you can change about your deductions
- Your W-4 controls the federal line: Step 2 for a second job or a working spouse, Step 3 for dependents, Step 4(b) for deductions, Step 4(c) for a flat extra or reduced amount per period. Hand the new form to payroll and it applies to later paychecks, not to ones already issued.
- Benefits enrollment controls the pre-tax and post-tax lines. Raising a 401(k) deferral shaves income tax, not FICA; a smaller FSA election hands cash back on every check.
- Nothing else. FICA is not adjustable, and a garnishment can be changed only by the court or agency that issued it.
Run your own numbers instead of reverse-engineering a stub: the federal paycheck calculator applies FICA and the 2026 percentage method to any pay frequency, and these add the state line — California, New York, Texas and Florida, the last two with zero state withholding.