Free US tax calculators
Straight answers to
money questions.
Calculators for people who work for themselves. No signup, no email wall, no “create a free account to see your result”. You get the number, and the working behind it.
United States only. Every calculator here works to US federal tax rules. It will not give you the right answer for Canada, the UK or anywhere else.
Self-employed & freelance
The money questions that come with working for yourself — what you owe, what you keep, and what it costs to run. US federal tax rules.
Self-employment tax calculator
Work out your self-employment tax and quarterly estimated payments from your net profit — including the deduction most calculators leave out.
Take-home pay calculator
What you actually keep after federal tax, self-employment tax and your state — and how that compares to living somewhere else.
LLC cost calculator
What forming an LLC actually costs in your state — filing fees, franchise tax and the annual report costs people forget about.
Invoice generator
Make a clean, professional invoice PDF in your browser. Nothing uploaded, no account, no watermark.
S-corp vs sole proprietor calculator
Whether electing S-corp status would actually save you money, once payroll, a separate return and the QBI interaction are counted.
1099 vs W-2 offer comparison
Two offers, two tax treatments. What each is actually worth after tax, benefits, and the payroll tax an employer pays invisibly on your behalf.
Solo 401(k) vs SEP-IRA calculator
How much you can shelter under each plan at your income, what it saves in tax, and the December deadline that usually decides the choice.
Freelance rate calculator
Turn the salary you want into an hourly rate that actually survives taxes, unpaid time and business costs.
Estimated tax safe harbour calculator
What you must have paid by the next quarterly deadline to be penalty-proof — which is usually far less than what you will eventually owe.
Guides
The parts that a calculator cannot answer — what counts as a deduction, what happens when you miss a payment, and which decisions are worth making early.
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Can you deduct a laptop? And should you deduct it all at once?
Yes, on the business-use share. The real question is whether to write it off in one year or spread it — and in a low-profit year, spreading it is worth more.
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Quarterly estimated taxes: a plain guide for the self-employed
Who has to pay, the 2026 due dates, how to work out each payment, how to send it, and what happens if you skip one.
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Seventeen states tax your LLC for existing. Most fee tables list none of them
We audited all 51 US jurisdictions for entity-level taxes on LLCs. Rhode Island's real floor is $450, not $50. Six states are missing from fee tables.
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The home office deduction: the audit myth, and which method pays more
It does not trigger audits. The simplified method caps at $1,500, the actual method often doubles it, and exclusive use is stricter than people think.
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Your first year freelancing: the tax checklist nobody gives you
The four things that catch first-year freelancers out, starting with the 15.3% tax you have never seen because an employer paid half of it.
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Schedule C, line by line, for people who have never filed one
Every line of Schedule C, with the exact IRS caption, what a freelancer actually puts there, and where the common expenses go. Includes a worked example.
Open data
Take the tables, not just the answer
The datasets behind these calculators are published as JSON and CSV under CC BY — including the entity-level taxes that almost every other LLC fee table leaves out.
How this site works
The answer comes first
The calculator is at the top of every page. The explanation sits underneath it, for when you want to know why the number is what it is.
Your numbers stay yours
Calculations run in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to us, stored, or attached to your name.
We show our working
Every tool explains its method and says what it can’t account for. An estimate that hides its assumptions isn’t worth much.