Terms of use

Last updated 3 October 2026. Using the site means accepting these. They are short because the site does little: it shows you arithmetic.

What this site is

The Cost Answer publishes calculators and reference figures, starting with what a paycheck looks like after tax in each state. Every figure names the document it came from and the date it was last checked. The site is independent and is not connected to any tax authority, any government body or any payroll company.

It is an estimate, and here is specifically why

This is the part worth reading. The figures are correct arithmetic on a deliberately simplified picture of your pay, and the gaps between that picture and your actual payslip are listed on each page rather than buried here. In particular:

• Local and city income taxes are excluded. Fifteen states have them and in some counties they are worth well over a thousand dollars a year.
• Only two filing statuses are modelled, single and married filing jointly. Head of household and married filing separately are not.
• Dependants, children, credits that have to be claimed on a return, and anything your W-4 says beyond filing status are not modelled.
• Post-tax deductions, such as health insurance premiums or wage garnishment, are not modelled, and they can be larger than the tax differences this site is about.
• Two states have published no figures for this tax year. Their pages say so and their numbers are an inflation estimate rather than a published rate.

A figure here is a good answer to "roughly what does a state cost me" and a bad answer to "what will my next payslip say". If the two disagree, your payslip is right.

Not tax advice

Nothing on this site is tax, legal, accounting or financial advice, and reading it does not make anyone your adviser. Do not make a decision that matters, about moving, about an offer, about what to withhold, on the strength of a page here alone. Tax depends on circumstances this site knows nothing about. For your own position, ask someone qualified who can see it.

Errors, and telling us about them

The figures are checked against the states' own publications and are still capable of being wrong: a state changes a law mid year, a document is superseded, a reading is mistaken. The site is provided as it is, with no warranty that any figure is accurate, current or fit for a particular purpose.

If you find a figure that disagrees with your state, please say so. Reports go to [email protected] and they are the single most useful thing anyone sends. Being right is the point of the site.

Liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, the site and whoever operates it are not liable for any loss arising from use of it or reliance on anything in it, including a figure that turns out to be wrong. If you are in a jurisdiction that does not allow some of that to be excluded, then it is excluded as far as that jurisdiction allows and no further.

Using the content

Read it, print it, link to it, quote a figure with a credit. The underlying tax rates and thresholds are public facts and nobody owns them. The writing, the design and the arrangement of the site are not public facts; please do not republish the site wholesale or scrape it to build a copy. If you want to use something substantially, ask.

Advertising

The site is intended to carry advertising. Advertisements, when they appear, are not endorsements, and no advertiser gets a say in a figure. If that ever stops being true this page will say so.

Changes

These terms can change. The date at the top moves when they do, and the change applies from then rather than backwards.

Written to be read and understood rather than to be comprehensive, and not reviewed by a lawyer. It names no company and no governing law, which is a deliberate choice for a site of this size rather than an omission.