Reference data

Federal figures are exact; state figures are averages. A federal bracket threshold is the same number in Alaska and Florida. A state sales tax or property tax rate published here is a state-level average, because both taxes are actually set by counties, cities, and school districts — within one state, combined sales tax rates commonly span more than two percentage points and property tax rates more than one. Use the state figure to compare states; use your county for a number you plan to act on.

A top marginal rate is not what anybody pays. The state income tax page lists the highest bracket rate for progressive-rate states. That is the rate on the last dollar earned by the highest earners there, not the effective rate for a typical household, which is a fraction of it.

An effective rate is the comparable one. Property tax is published as an effective rate — annual tax as a share of home value — precisely because millage rates and assessment ratios are defined differently in every jurisdiction and cannot be compared directly.

Confidence is stated, not assumed. Where a figure comes from a secondary source, or follows a conventional relationship to a confirmed number rather than being independently verified, the page says so in the place you will read it. Presenting every number with identical confidence would look more authoritative and be less true.

Most federal figures are inflation-adjusted annually and announced in the autumn for the following tax year: the IRS publishes bracket and deduction adjustments in a revenue procedure, retirement contribution limits in a separate release, and the Social Security Administration announces the wage base and the cost-of-living adjustment in October.

Not everything moves, and the exceptions matter. The Additional Medicare Tax thresholds of $200,000 and $250,000 are fixed in statute and have not been indexed since they took effect in 2013. The section 121 home sale exclusion of $250,000 and $500,000 has never been indexed either. Both therefore capture a steadily growing share of taxpayers each year without any law changing — a quiet tax increase that never gets voted on.

State rates change on legislative schedules that vary by state, and several states have multi-year rate reductions in progress. Market reference points — mortgage rates, median home prices, index yields — move continuously and are used here only as starting values in a calculator, never presented as live quotes.

Each page carries the date its figures were last checked against the source. If that date is old relative to what you are doing, go to the primary source, and please tell us so it gets updated.