1040 Tax Calculator

Estimate your taxes with AARP's federal tax calculator

Daniel Bortz and John Waggoner,

Updated August 04, 2025

AARP

Published January 04, 2021

/ Updated August 04, 2025

Enter your filing status, income, deductions and credits and we will estimate your total taxes. Based on your projected tax withholding for the year, we can also estimate your tax refund or amount you may owe the IRS next April.

Change the information currently provided in the calculator to match your personal information and view your results.

*Indicates required information.

Reset Calculator

Information and interactive calculators are made available to you as self-help tools for your independent use and are not intended to provide investment advice. We cannot and do not guarantee their applicability or accuracy in regards to your individual circumstances. All examples are hypothetical and are for illustrative purposes. We encourage you to seek personalized advice from qualified professionals regarding all personal finance issues.

Editor’s note: This calculator provides an estimate for tax year 2025, for which tax forms are filed in 2026. The IRS is working on guidance for the new rules passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The calculator will be updated when that guidance is finalized.

How does the tax calculator work?

The tax calculator gives an estimate of the tax you owe on income earned in 2025. The next federal income tax filing deadline is Wednesday, April 15, 2026. (In tax parlance, that is the 2026 filing year and the 2025 tax year.)

How do tax brackets work?

If you are in the 22 percent federal tax bracket, you don’t pay 22 percent of your entire income to Uncle Sam. Federal taxes are graduated, meaning you pay different rates on different amounts of taxable income. There are seven tax brackets in all.

You may notice we’re talking about taxable income above. Taxable income is what you’ve earned minus deductions and credits.

Income Tax FAQs

Deductions are expenses that you’re allowed to subtract from your gross income, which is what you’ll find in box 1 of your W-2 form. (If you’re self-employed, your taxable income is all the money you’ve received for your work.) You also owe income taxes on certain other income, such as interest from bank accounts, which is reported on Form 1099-INT, as well as dividends and capital gains, which are also reported on Form 1099. 

Most people take the standard deduction, which is available to all taxpayers. Single taxpayers can deduct $15,000 from their gross income, up from $14,600 the previous year. A person with $65,000 in gross income, for example, can reduce their taxable income to $50,000. The standard deduction for couples filing jointly in 2025 will rise to $30,000, up from $29,200 the prior year.

You should figure out your itemized deductions before you decide to claim the standard deduction. The tax law lets you deduct a myriad of expenses, the most common of which are mortgage interest and medical expenses. If you have a large mortgage or big medical bills, it may be worthwhile to itemize your deductions.

A few deductions are called above-the-line deductions, which means you can claim them even if you take the standard deduction. These include teacher expenses, contributions to health savings accounts, part of your self-employment tax, health insurance premiums, alimony payments and contributions to traditional individual retirement accounts (IRAs).

They’re great, that’s what they are. A tax deduction lowers your taxable income, which lowers your tax bill. A tax credit reduces your tax bill dollar for dollar. If you owe $600 in taxes and qualify for a $500 tax credit, your tax liability falls to $100. Normally, you can only take a credit for as much as you owe. For example, if you qualify for a $500 credit and have a $300 tax bill, you can only reduce your bill to zero.

There are a few exceptions to that rule. Refundable tax credits, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), can not only reduce your tax bill but also turn a bill into a refund. Say you owe the IRS $600 in taxes. A $700 refundable tax credit would turn your $600 bill into a $100 tax refund.  

Daniel Bortz is a personal finance editor at AARP, where he writes and edits money content for the website, from saving and budgeting to building wealth and money management skills. His work has been published by the New York Times, the Washington Post, Consumer Reports, Entrepreneur, Kiplinger, Newsweek, Money and other national publications.

John Waggoner is a contributing writer of all things financial for AARP, from budgeting and taxes to retirement planning and Social Security. Previously, he was a reporter for Kiplinger’s Personal Finance and USA Today and has written books on investing and the 2008 financial crisis. Waggoner’s USA Today investing column ran in dozens of newspapers for 25 years.