Your Tax Receipt

Enter the federal tax you paid and see an itemized receipt of where it went: 14 spending areas, 55 line items, seven charts. Works like the receipt Australia mails to taxpayers, built from U.S. federal budget data, with optional state and local taxes.

What did you pay?

Amounts stay in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere. Hover or tap the ? beside any field to see where to find it on every form (1040, W-2, 1099s, state returns and more).

$
1040 line 24, or W-2 box 2, 1099s and more: see ?
$
W-2, box 4
$
W-2, box 6
$
Form 1040, line 9 (total income). Unlocks work-time view.

State and local taxes (optional)

Pick a state to see its income-tax rules.
$
Your state return (line names vary), or W-2 box 17
$
Schedule A, line 5a if you itemize, or the IRS sales tax calculator
$
Schedule A line 5b, your property tax bill, or rent × about 20%
Try an example:
Where do I find these numbers?
FORM 1040

Federal income tax

  • Line 24, "Total tax": the best single number. Income tax plus any self-employment or other taxes you owed for the year.
  • Line 16, "Tax": income tax before credits and other taxes. Slightly higher or lower than line 24 depending on your credits.
  • Line 25d, "Total withholding": what your employer actually sent in during the year, before your refund or balance due.
FORM W-2

Payroll taxes

  • Box 2: federal income tax withheld.
  • Box 4: Social Security tax withheld (6.2% of wages, up to a yearly cap).
  • Box 6: Medicare tax withheld (1.45%, plus 0.9% on high earners).
  • Your employer paid a matching amount that never shows on your W-2.
SELF-EMPLOYED

Schedule SE

  • Schedule SE, line 12: self-employment tax (flows to Schedule 2, line 4, and is included in 1040 line 24).
  • If you use line 24, leave the two payroll boxes blank to avoid counting it twice.
  • To split it, put 12.4 / 15.3 of that figure in the Social Security box and 2.9 / 15.3 in Medicare.
NO RETURN YET?

Estimate it

  • Use your last pay stub: year-to-date federal withholding.
  • Or use last year's return. Spending shares change slowly.
  • The tool only does arithmetic on the amount, so a rough number gives a rough receipt.
The receipt spreads your tax across all federal spending in proportion to the budget. Tax dollars are not tracked to individual programs. Payroll taxes, if you enter them, are shown separately because they largely fund Social Security and Medicare by law.

Where it went

Hover or tap any slice for details.

How the spending is paid for

Federal taxes cover only part of spending. The rest is borrowed, which is why interest is its own line.

Your tax as time

Then and now

Share of federal spending going to five big areas. Your dollars would have been divided differently in each year.

Full breakdown table

Every category with the amount, the share and the time it would take to earn it back at your tax rate.

About the numbers