Updated · Built and checked by the PlinzoTools team, formulas tested against published sources
Find which federal tax bracket applies to your next dollar of income, without a full tax bill calculation.
22%
Bracket starts at $50,400
Sometimes you just need a quick answer to "what tax bracket am I in?" without running a full tax bill calculation -- this tool is a simpler, standalone lookup for exactly that question, distinct from the Income Tax Calculator's complete bracket-by-bracket tax computation.
Enter your taxable income (income after deductions, not gross income) and filing status.
Federal brackets are ranges of income, each taxed at its own rate as income passes into that range. This tool identifies which range your taxable income currently falls into and reports that bracket's rate and starting threshold.
Use your marginal bracket to quickly evaluate whether an additional pre-tax deduction (like a 401k contribution) is worth more to you this year than in a year where you might be in a lower bracket, or to understand roughly how much of an extra dollar of income you'd keep.
Knowing your marginal bracket is mainly useful for judging the value of changes at the edge of your income. Using hypothetical brackets of 10% up to $10,000 and 20% above it, a person with $30,000 of taxable income is in the 20% bracket. A $5,000 deduction would reduce tax by about $1,000, since every dollar removed comes off the top of the 20% slice. The deduction has the same size but a different impact for someone at $12,000 taxable: only $2,000 of it falls in the 20% bracket and the other $3,000 in the 10% bracket, saving $400 plus $300, or $700. The bracket tells you the value of the top dollars, but the size of the change matters too when it crosses a threshold.
Use this tool when deciding whether to make a pre-tax retirement contribution, when estimating the after-tax value of freelance income, when thinking about bunching deductions into one year, or when considering whether to accelerate or defer income. For decisions involving large amounts, confirm the numbers with a qualified tax professional, since credits and phase-outs can change the outcome in ways a simple bracket lookup cannot show.
If your result seems off, compare your taxable income with last year's return, where taxable income appears on the main form. Deductions change from year to year, so the same salary can land in different brackets. Also remember that a bracket is a range, so being just above a threshold means only the dollars above it are taxed at the higher rate.
No -- your marginal bracket only applies to the portion of income within that bracket, not your entire income. See the Income Tax Calculator for your actual effective (average) rate.
Taxable income -- income after your standard deduction (or itemized deductions) has already been subtracted, not your raw gross income.
They usually mean the same thing here: the rate applied to your next dollar of ordinary taxable income.
Yes. Phase-outs of credits and deductions, extra Medicare taxes, and state taxes can raise the true cost of an extra dollar beyond the federal bracket rate.
The IRS publishes the current bracket tables on IRS.gov for each filing status.
Yes, if you choose the married filing jointly option and enter your combined taxable income.
Reference: Internal Revenue Service