Your 2026 federal taxes, itemized.
A gas station prints you a receipt for a candy bar, but the biggest bill you pay all year never gets one. So we print it here. Enter your income and filing status, and the register itemizes your 2026 federal taxes against what the government actually spends the money on. There's a download button if you want to keep yours.
W-2 wages before 401(k) and other deductions. Combine both spouses if filing jointly.
Every dollar you earned before February 24 went to this receipt. That works out to 72 minutes of every 8-hour workday, all year.
A planning estimate for tax year 2026, not tax advice or a tax return. Uses the 2026 federal brackets and standard deduction under Rev. Proc. 2025-32, the child tax credit with its phaseout, and employee-side Social Security and Medicare taxes on wage income. Ignores state tax, itemized deductions, other credits, self-employment and investment income, and pre-tax payroll deductions. Spending shares approximate federal outlays by budget function for fiscal year 2025 and are applied to your combined income and payroll tax. By law, payroll taxes are earmarked for Social Security and Medicare; the receipt instead spreads your total across where federal spending actually goes. Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is stored or sent anywhere.
Built in Mapleton, Utah by Ewan Morkel, EA. If you spot an error in the math or the spending shares, email ewan@morkelfinancial.com and it'll get fixed.
Where each dollar goes
The percentages are fiscal year 2025 federal outlays, grouped by budget function and rounded so the receipt balances. A few of them surprise people every time. Foreign aid, the perennial first guess for where the money goes, is about a penny of each dollar. And interest on money the government already borrowed now costs more than the military.
Sources: Monthly Treasury Statement and OMB Historical Tables, fiscal year 2025 outlays by budget function. Each share is rounded to the half cent so the receipt adds to 100, so treat every line as approximate.
Common questions
Where do the spending percentages come from?
Fiscal year 2025 federal outlays, grouped by budget function, from the Monthly Treasury Statement and OMB's historical tables. We rounded each category to the half cent so the receipt balances to exactly 100 cents on the dollar, which means every line is a little approximate by design. The mix drifts year to year (interest has been climbing steadily since 2022), but the overall shape hasn't changed much in a decade.
Why does the receipt include Social Security and Medicare tax?
Because your paycheck doesn't separate them either. The total here is federal income tax plus the employee side of FICA: 6.2% Social Security up to the wage base, 1.45% Medicare, and the extra 0.9% at higher incomes. Strictly speaking, payroll taxes are earmarked for Social Security and Medicare rather than pooled with general revenue. We spread the combined total across all spending anyway, which is the same choice the White House made for its 2011 taxpayer receipt. The alternative is a receipt where two line items take up 40% of the paper.
How accurate is my receipt?
The brackets, standard deduction, and child tax credit are the real 2026 figures. But the tool assumes plain W-2 wages and skips state tax, 401(k) contributions, itemized deductions, and investment or side income, any of which can move the number. Treat it as a good sketch, not your return.
Why does it say I saved $0.00?
Because that's the default. Withholding happens automatically, April settles the difference, and the total never really changes unless someone changes it before December 31. Retirement contributions, an HSA, entity structure if you're self-employed, timing deductions. None of that appears on this receipt because none of it happens on its own.
What is the date on the 'worked for this until' line?
Your total federal bill as a share of income, mapped onto the calendar. At a 20% effective rate, everything you earned through mid-March covered the federal bill, and the rest of the year was yours. Economists quibble with this framing, and fair enough, but it makes an abstract percentage very concrete.
Is anything I type stored or sent anywhere?
No. The math runs in your browser, there's no server on the other end of it, and no email gate. The PNG is generated on your own machine.
Want next year's receipt to look different?
The receipt shows the autopilot outcome. Most of the moves that change it have deadlines in December, not April. A thirty-minute call is usually enough to tell whether it's worth doing anything about yours.