SuperNYCtools every new yorker needs

How we compute NYC paycheck taxes

Last verified . Covers the math behind Paycheck calculator.

The SuperNYC paycheck calculator computes what a NYC resident actually takes home after federal, NY State, NYC, FICA, SDI, and PFL withholdings. The math behind it traces line-by-line to primary sources: IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32 (the federal inflation-adjusted bracket release), the NY Department of Taxation IT-201 instructions (the actual filing-time worksheet that NY State returns are computed against), the SSA's annual wage-base announcement, and the NY DFS Paid Family Leave rate decision. This page documents what we use, what we don't use, and why the answer can differ from the figure on a real ADP paystub.

Annual liability, not per-paycheck withholding

The most important thing to understand about the SuperNYC paycheck calculator is that it computes annual tax liability — the amount you would actually owe on your tax return at filing time — and divides by paychecks per year to estimate take-home pay. It does not replicate the per-paycheck withholding tables that employer payroll systems (ADP, Gusto, Paychex) use to decide how much to withhold from each individual paycheck.

The two approaches differ. The annual-liability approach uses the bracket schedules and recapture worksheets from the IT-201 and 1040 — the same math you do when filing your return. The withholding approach uses IRS Pub. 15-T and NY Pub. NYS-50-T tables, which annualize each paycheck, look up withholding by bracket, then divide. Withholding tables are deliberately calibrated for slight over-withholding so most filers get a refund; they also round differently than the filing-time schedules.

On a per-paycheck comparison to ADP or SmartAsset, the SuperNYC figure will typically differ by 5-15%. On an annual total, our number should match an accurate IT-201 hand calculation within rounding. Which one you want depends on why you're asking: if you want to predict the cash landing in your bank account this Friday, the ADP withholding number is more accurate; if you want to predict your full-year tax bill (the question that matters for relocation decisions or salary negotiations), the SuperNYC number is more accurate.

Federal income tax

Brackets and the standard deduction

Federal brackets for tax year 2026 come from IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32, released October 9, 2025 (IR-2025-103). Rev. Proc. 2025-32 implements the bracket changes from the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act (Pub. L. 119-21, enacted July 4, 2025), which made the 2018-2025 individual rate schedule permanent at the existing rates of 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 37%, and raised the basic standard deduction.

For a single filer in 2026, the bracket breakpoints (taxable income, not gross) are roughly: $12,400 (10% → 12%), $50,400 (12% → 22%), $105,700 (22% → 24%), $201,775 (24% → 32%), $256,225 (32% → 35%), and $640,600 (35% → 37%). Married filing jointly approximately doubles each breakpoint. Heads of household sit between single and MFJ. The standard deduction for 2026 is $16,100 single, $32,200 MFJ, $24,150 head of household.

We apply the brackets marginally — only the dollars in each bracket are taxed at that bracket's rate. The common misunderstanding that "earning more pushes all your income into a higher bracket" is wrong in every income tax system the calculator models.

FICA — Social Security and Medicare

FICA is 7.65% on most wages: 6.2% Social Security (OASDI) up to a wage base, plus 1.45% Medicare with no wage cap. The 2026 Social Security wage base is $184,500, announced in the SSA press release of October 24, 2025. The maximum employee Social Security contribution at the 2026 wage base is $11,439.

Above $200,000 single or $250,000 married filing jointly, an additional 0.9% Medicare surtax kicks in on the dollars over those thresholds. These thresholds were set by statute (IRC § 3101(b)(2)) and are not indexed for inflation — they have not changed since the surtax took effect in 2013. Critically, the 0.9% surtax is employee-only: the employer does not match it (unlike the 1.45% base Medicare).

New York State income tax

The IT-201 bracket schedule

NY State income tax for 2026 follows the schedule in the New York Department of Taxation and Finance's IT-201-I instructions, adjusted per Chapter 59 of the Laws of 2025 (Part A). Brackets run from 4% to 10.9%, with the 10.9% rate kicking in only at NY taxable income above $25 million. For most NYC workers the effective NY State marginal rate sits between 5.5% and 6.85%.

We use the IT-201-I rate schedule rather than the NYS-50-T-NYS withholding tables. The withholding tables are designed for employer payroll systems and bake recapture into the marginal rates in a way that zigzags — useful for withholding, useless for predicting actual tax liability. The IT-201 form decomposes tax cleanly into base tax plus a recapture additive, which is the structure SuperNYC implements.

The $107,650 tax-benefit recapture

This is the part nearly every other online NYC tax calculator gets wrong. NY State has a hidden flat-tax phase-in starting at NY adjusted gross income of $107,650 (single, separate, MFJ — the threshold is the same across statuses). The mechanism is structured as 16 separate worksheets in the IT-201-I instructions, keyed on the taxpayer's NY AGI band and taxable-income band, but the effect is straightforward: above $107,650 NY AGI, the benefit of being in the lower brackets is progressively recaptured over a $50,000 AGI band. By the time you cross $157,650 NY AGI, you've effectively paid the higher marginal rate on all your income, not just the portion in the higher bracket.

For a single filer earning $130,000 NY taxable income, the naive marginal calculation produces ~$7,400 of NY tax. The actual IT-201 calculation with recapture produces ~$7,700. That $300 gap is the recapture additive — and it scales up sharply for higher incomes. At $200,000 NY taxable income the gap is closer to $1,500.

We implement the full IT-201 recapture worksheet (all five MFJ bands, four single bands, four HoH bands, plus the > $25M flat-rate band). The implementation is characterization-tested against hand calculations from the IT-201-I form to within whole-dollar rounding.

NY SDI — Disability Insurance

NY State Disability Insurance is 0.5% of wages capped at $0.60 per week (i.e., $31.20 annual maximum). The rate and cap are set by NY Workers' Compensation Law §209 and have not changed since the law's modernization in the 1980s. They are not indexed for inflation. We implement this as min(annual_wages × 0.005, 31.20).

NY PFL — Paid Family Leave

NY Paid Family Leave is 0.432% of wages in 2026, capped at a maximum annual employee contribution of $411.91. The cap is hit at gross annual wages of approximately $95,349. The rate is set annually by the NY Department of Financial Services premium-rate decision (typically issued in late August or September for the following year). The 2026 PFL update page is our reference. For 2025 the rate was 0.388% ($354.53 cap); the 2026 increase reflects the rise in the NY Statewide Average Weekly Wage to $1,833.63.

New York City income tax

NYC residents pay an additional city income tax with four brackets running from 3.078% to 3.876%, applied to NY taxable income with minor NYC-specific modifications (charitable-fund add-back, etc., which the calculator ignores in v1). The bracket breakpoints differ by filing status; for single filers, the top NYC rate of 3.876% kicks in at $50,000 NY taxable income — meaning most NYC workers earning above ~$50,000 are paying close to the top NYC rate.

Conceptually, NYC income tax is a small but reliable add to NY State tax. A single filer earning $100,000 gross pays roughly $3,200/year in NYC tax. That figure (combined with the $30-$400 SDI/PFL contributions) is the main reason a Jersey City commute genuinely saves money relative to a NYC residence at the same gross salary. NYC tax applies based on domicile (where you live), not workplace — a Westchester resident working in Manhattan pays no NYC tax.

New Jersey income tax (for the NJ commute comparison)

The affordability tool offers an NJ-residence option for the "what if I commute from Jersey City instead of living in NYC?" comparison. NJ income tax brackets are documented on the NJ Division of Taxation Tax Rate Schedules PDF (which has been in effect since 2020 with no superseding update for 2025 or 2026). Rates run from 1.4% to 10.75%. NJ residents who work in NY pay NY non-resident income tax on NY-source wages, then claim a credit on their NJ return to avoid double taxation — the net effect is roughly "pay the higher of NJ or NY State on the same wages, plus no NYC tax." The calculator approximates this in v1 by computing only NJ tax in NJ-residence mode and skipping the NY/NJ credit reconciliation.

The algorithm, end to end

For a NYC resident wage-earner:

  1. FICA: min(gross, 184,500) × 0.062 for Social Security; gross × 0.0145 for base Medicare; max(0, gross − threshold) × 0.009 for the additional Medicare surtax above the statutory threshold.
  2. Federal: subtract the standard deduction from gross to get federal taxable income, then apply the Rev. Proc. 2025-32 bracket table for the filing status.
  3. NY State: subtract the NY standard deduction from gross to get NY taxable income, apply the IT-201-I bracket schedule for the filing status, then if NY AGI exceeds $107,650 add the recapture additive from the IT-201-I worksheet matching the AGI band.
  4. NYC: apply the four-bracket NYC schedule to NY taxable income.
  5. SDI: min(annual_wages × 0.005, 31.20).
  6. PFL: min(annual_wages × 0.00432, 411.91).
  7. Take-home = gross − (FICA + federal + NY State + NYC + SDI + PFL).

For NJ residence, steps 3-4 are replaced with the NJ rate schedule, and steps 5-6 are dropped (SDI and PFL are NY-only).

What the calculator does not model

Real tax math has more degrees of freedom than any web calculator can faithfully reproduce. The SuperNYC paycheck tool deliberately stays in MVP territory on the following:

  • Wages only. No investment income, self-employment income, K-1 distributions, or 1099 consulting. These materially change the federal and NY State liability.
  • Standard deduction only.No itemizing, no SALT cap interactions, no charitable contributions. For higher earners in NYC who own a home or give meaningfully, itemizing usually reduces federal tax and the calculator's figure will overstate federal liability.
  • No dependents.The dependent exemption, EITC, child tax credit, and child & dependent care credit can swing real tax by several thousand dollars; the calculator flags this in the FAQ but does not compute it.
  • No pre-tax adjustments in v1. 401(k) traditional contributions, HSA contributions, pre-tax health premiums, FSA, commuter benefits — the affordability tool supports 401(k) modeling but the standalone paycheck tool currently treats all wages as fully taxable.
  • Single employer assumption. The 0.9% Additional Medicare surtax reconciliation on Form 8959 assumes one employer for the year. Multi-job filers may see the calculator under-withhold the surtax slightly relative to their true liability.
  • Full-year residency. Moving in or out of NYC mid-year creates a part-year residency calculation that the calculator does not handle.

For an actual tax-planning decision — especially anything involving equity vesting, business income, or major life changes — work with a CPA. The calculator's job is to help you estimate take-home pay against an offer or a move decision, not to do your taxes.

Re-verification schedule

Every tax constant in the code is re-verified on a schedule tied to when its source publication updates:

  • Federal brackets and standard deduction — re-verified each January when the IRS publishes the Revenue Procedure for the next tax year (typically October-November of the prior year).
  • SSA wage base— re-verified each November when the SSA announces the next year's COLA and wage base (typically mid-October).
  • Additional Medicare 0.9% thresholds — statutory, not indexed; re-checked only if Congress amends the ACA Medicare provisions.
  • NY State rate schedule and recapture worksheets — re-verified each February when the NY Department of Taxation publishes the IT-201-I instructions for the new tax year (typically December or January).
  • NYC rate schedule— same trigger as NY State (it's published in the same IT-201-I form).
  • NJ rate schedules— re-verified each November against the NJ DTF's most recent publication. NJ has not changed brackets since 2020.
  • NY SDI rate and cap — statutory; not indexed. Re-checked only on amendment.
  • NY PFL rate and cap— re-verified each September when the NY DFS publishes the next year's premium-rate decision.

Primary sources

See the paycheck calculator to run the math for your situation, or the guide explainer for a less-technical overview.