About TaxCompare
Compare your real tax burden.
What we do
TaxCompare models federal and state taxes side by side so households can see how moves, raises, and deductions actually change what they owe.
We focus on U.S. federal and state income taxes. Every page on taxcompare.org is built from IRS Revenue Procedures and the Tax Foundation state-tax database, cited and linkable so readers can trace any number back to its source.
Who runs this
TaxCompare is built and maintained by the TaxCompare Team. We're a small group working on making public U.S. federal and state income taxes data easier for non-specialists to read. If you have a correction, a data tip, or a question about how a number was derived, the contact email below reaches us directly.
Who this is for
TaxCompare is built for taxpayers weighing relocation, remote workers, and financial advisors.
Why this exists
Public data on U.S. federal and state income taxes is technically free, but practically locked behind file formats, acronyms, and paywalled dashboards. TaxCompareexists to close that gap: take the raw federal and public-sector data, and turn it into pages a normal person can read in thirty seconds.
How we work
- Primary source only. We pull from IRS Revenue Procedures and the Tax Foundation state-tax database and cite the exact dataset and version on every page.
- No invented numbers. If a figure is not in the underlying public data, it does not appear on taxcompare.org. We never generate synthetic statistics to fill gaps.
- Methodology, in plain English. We encode federal brackets, standard deductions, and common credits from IRS Revenue Procedures and pair them with state bracket tables from the Tax Foundation. The calculator applies both to a user-entered scenario (income, filing status, dependents, state) and surfaces federal plus state liability side by side.
- Refreshed on a schedule. Refreshed once per year after the IRS publishes the next tax year’s Revenue Procedures (typically late October or November).
- Corrections welcome. Readers flag issues all the time. When the source fixes a record, TaxCompare follows.
Known limitations
The calculator covers federal plus most state income taxes — local income taxes, AMT, Medicare surtaxes on specific fact patterns, and itemized deductions beyond the common five are simplified. It is a planning tool, not tax preparation, and does not constitute tax advice.
Why side-by-side state tax comparison deserves a dedicated tool
The U.S. tax code is famously complex, and state-level tax differences compound the federal picture. Seven states have no income tax; nine have flat rates; the rest run graduated brackets that range from gently progressive to steeply progressive. Sales taxes vary from zero (Delaware, Oregon, Montana) to combined state-plus-local rates over 10 percent in some metros. Property tax rates and effective rates diverge from market value in ways that change based on assessment cycles. Total state-and-local tax burden as a share of income can therefore vary by ten percentage points or more between two otherwise similar households living in different states.
This is the kind of comparison that policy researchers and tax-attorney engagements run routinely, but it has been hard for ordinary households to do for themselves. TaxCompare exists to make the side-by-side tax comparison accessible — input a household profile (income, family structure, housing tenure), and the tool produces a real apples-to-apples estimate of federal-plus-state tax burden across whatever states you want to compare.
The site does not give tax advice. It produces a federal-plus-state estimate based on current-year statutory tax law from the IRS Revenue Procedures and the Tax Foundation state-tax database; the estimate is the right ballpark, but the actual tax bill depends on individual circumstances that the tool does not capture.
How the tax-estimation engine is built
The engine combines three sources. Federal income tax rates come from the IRS Revenue Procedures published annually before the start of each tax year. State income tax rates and brackets come from the Tax Foundation state-tax database, refreshed each spring. State and local sales tax rates also come from Tax Foundation, with the local-rate component aggregated to a statewide weighted average for tractability. Property tax rates come from the Tax Foundation’s state-level effective-rate dataset.
The per-state pages combine these inputs into a single tax-burden estimate for a representative household. The compare tool lets a reader plug in their actual income and household structure and produce a state-by-state estimate tailored to their profile. The methodology page lists every input series with source URL.
The limits of the model are honest. We do not model tax credits beyond the federal standard deduction and Child Tax Credit; state credits (renewable energy, child care, low-income, earned income) can shift the actual bill meaningfully. We do not model itemization beyond the standard deduction; high-income households or homeowners with large mortgage-interest deductions will see lower actual federal tax than the tool reports. The tool is the starting point, not the tax return.
Where tax data needs caveats
Three honest caveats. First, statutory tax rates do not equal effective tax rates. A 6 percent state income tax with a generous standard deduction and several credits can produce a lower effective rate than a 4 percent state with no deductions. The model accounts for the federal standard deduction; some state-level adjustments are approximated rather than modeled in full.
Second, residency rules for state taxes are subtle. Working in one state while living in another can trigger nonresident-state filing obligations; remote work has expanded the surface area of these questions substantially. The tool assumes single-state residence; multi-state filers should treat the output as the residence-state piece only.
Third, the cost-of-living offset is real. Lower-tax states often have higher housing or sales-tax costs that partially offset the tax savings; higher-tax states often have higher public services that produce real value in exchange. The tool reports tax burden; the full life-quality comparison depends on goods and services that the tax model does not value.
Independence
TaxCompare is an independent publication. We are not funded, owned, or directed by any of the agencies, companies, or organizations that appear in our data. Hosting is paid for by advertising — see our Privacy Policy for details — and we do not take paid placements, sponsored rankings, or "remove-my-entry" fees.
History
TaxCompare launched in 2026 as part of a small portfolio of independent public-data sites. It has been maintained and updated continuously since.
Contact
Tips, corrections, data-partnership questions, and press inquiries: hello@taxcompare.org. More options on our contact page.