A bracket taxes only the dollars inside it, so your top rate is not the share of your income that goes to tax. These pieces cover the federal schedule, the flat-tax and no-tax states, and what the rate changes are worth in dollars.
· 7 min read
Maryland, Indiana, Iowa and New York put the county, city or school-district income tax on the state return. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Kentucky, Missouri, Alabama, Delaware and Oregon collect theirs through a separate return or city withholding, and in Philadelphia that separate bill is larger than the state's.
· 10 min read
California's top income tax rate is the highest of the 51 jurisdictions, yet it charges a $65,000 single filer less for 2026 than flat-rate Illinois, Kentucky or Michigan. Ranked by what that filer pays, the list barely resembles the one ranked by top rate.
· 8 min read
For tax year 2026 the $40,400 SALT cap loses 30 cents for every dollar of MAGI above $505,000 and lands on its $10,000 floor at $606,334. Inside that band an itemizer's next dollar of income is taxed as $1.30, a 45.5 percent federal rate in the 35 percent bracket.
· 5 min read
Box 1 of a W-2 leaves out a 401(k) or 403(b) deferral. Pennsylvania keeps both in box 16, New Jersey keeps the 403(b), and Ohio cities keep both in box 18, so a $65,000 earner deferring $5,000 can see $60,000 federally and $65,000 for the state.
· 9 min read
Fifteen states tax wages at one rate for 2026, from Arizona's 2.5% to Idaho's 5.3%. The rate is a poor guide to the bill: Georgia's 4.99% charges a $65,000 single filer less than Illinois's 4.95%, and Kentucky's 3.5% charges more than Iowa's 3.8%, because each state subtracts something different before the rate applies.
· 7 min read
Virginia, Delaware, Alabama, Kansas and New Jersey write their 2026 brackets and deductions as fixed dollar amounts, so a raise that only matched 3.7% inflation is taxed at more than 3.7%. Minnesota, Maine, Oregon, Nebraska, Missouri and North Dakota index theirs by statute.
· 10 min read
Twenty statewide measures in eleven states would change an income, property or sales tax on November 3, 2026. Only one of them changes the 2027 state income tax bill of a $65,000 single filer: Colorado's Amendment 87, which would cut it by about $223.
· 7 min read
Thirteen states cut their top personal income tax rate for 2026 and one raised it — Maine, by two points, through a surcharge that reaches nobody under a million dollars. The median bill for a $65,000 single filer fell about $110.
· 7 min read
Twenty states lowered their top personal income tax rate over five years, three raised theirs, and four abandoned graduated brackets entirely. Every figure here is computed from TaxMath's own rate tables.
· 7 min read
Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming charge no broad-based personal income tax for 2026, but only four of the nine zeros sit behind a constitutional ban. Washington's is scheduled to end: a 9.9% tax on income above $1 million takes effect January 1, 2028.
· 6 min read
Public Law 119-21 repealed the TCJA phase-down before the 20% year arrived: property acquired after January 19, 2025 gets a permanent 100% first-year write-off. The 2026 Section 179 cap is $2,560,000, and the 20% QBI deduction no longer expires.
· 6 min read
Illinois's overhaul of apportionment and foreign-income deductions lives on corporate schedules; the IL-1040 still charges a flat 4.95%, unchanged since July 2017 and constitutionally required to stay non-graduated. What moves an Illinois bill is the exemption allowance ($2,925 for 2026, gone in one step above $250,000 of AGI), the retirement subtraction, and the 5% property tax credit.
· 6 min read
A Senate committee recommended eliminating Georgia's income tax by 2032. HB 463, the law Georgia enacted instead, cuts the 2026 rate to 4.99% and steps it down 0.125 points a year toward a 3.99% floor, with every step past 2026 conditioned on revenue tests that had just blocked prior law's scheduled cut.
· 5 min read
SB 6346, signed March 30, 2026, taxes individual income above a $1 million household deduction at 9.9% beginning January 1, 2028, with the first returns due in 2029. Initiative 645, certified to the November 3, 2026 ballot, asks voters to repeal it before the first dollar is collected.
· 5 min read
The 2026 brackets are the TCJA's, inflation-adjusted and made permanent by OBBBA §70101. A single filer's 22% bracket starts at $50,400 of taxable income, the standard deduction is $16,100, and the top rate stays 37%.