Ro's Recz

I have been interested in learning more about things that are related with entering the work force, such as taxes and salaries. As a soon-to-be-graduate, I have been trying to find out exactly how much of a normal salary you actually get.

If you are working for a company, things such as federal taxes, local taxes, deductions, etc. will automatically be taken out of your paycheck before you receive it. However, it is difficult to calculate the amount if you haven’t started work yet (if you don’t have something like ADP that you can look at for reference).

However, there is a website called SmartAsset, which has a resource called the Free Paycheck Calculator. Once you get to this site, you plug in your salary, where you live, etc., and it will automatically calculate how much your take-home-pay will be. I found it super useful, and it is a lot easier than having to manually calculate it. You can also change the settings based on a variety of different demographics you may be part of.

One new thing I learned is that the tax bracket you belong to is not necessarily the actual tax rate that you will pay. Instead, you will pay your effective tax rate, which means your first $10,000 or so is taxed differently than your next $40,000, according to this chart. Previously, I thought whatever tax bracket you fell in is what you paid for your entire salary, so this was good for me to find out. Definitely go to SmartAsset and give the tool a try!