The calculator asks for household income, marital status, number of children, and employment status to estimate three federal personal taxes.

This is based on your income (or about 92% of it if you are self-employed). If you’re employed, 6.2% of your income goes to Social Security, or 12.4% if you’re self-employed. There’s a cap, so you only pay this tax up to a certain income level. In 2024, that was $168,600. In 2026, that was $184,500.

This is also based on your income (or about 92% of it if you’re self-employed). You pay 1.45% of your income to Medicare if you’re employed, or 2.9% if you’re self-employed. If you earn more, you’ll pay an extra 0.9% on income above:

• $200,000 if you’re single
• $250,000 if you’re married

First, the tool applies a standard deduction to the income you entered. The deduction is $14,600 if you’re single, $29,200, if you’re married. After that you are taxed based on the income tax brackets. The tool applies a $2,000 tax credit for every child under 17.

This step takes your estimated taxes and uses USAFacts budget data to show how they might be distributed across different areas of federal spending. It uses preliminary fiscal year 2025 spending totals to estimate how much of your tax dollars go to programs like Social Security, Medicare, and everything else the federal government funds. This includes federal spending on government programs, even if those programs are administered by state and local governments (e.g., Medicaid)

To do this, it considers total federal spending and calculates how large each category is as a share of that total. This includes major programs like Social Security and Medicare, as well as all other programs grouped together (we’ll get to those later). These shares help determine how your taxes are proportionally allocated.

Next, your estimated taxes — including income tax, Social Security tax, and Medicare tax — are combined into a single total. The receipt estimates how much of that total would go toward Social Security and Medicare based on national spending patterns.

First up: payroll taxes. Obviously, your Social Security taxes go toward Social Security spending, and your Medicare taxes go toward Medicare spending. If those taxes don’t fully cover the estimated amounts, income tax makes up the difference. If there’s more payroll tax than needed, the excess is shown as “savings” for those programs.

Finally, any remaining income tax is distributed across all other federal programs. Each program receives a share based on its portion of total federal spending.

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