About PaycheckDesk

Who makes this

PaycheckDesk is built and maintained by an independent software developer, not by an accounting firm. We are not certified public accountants, not enrolled agents, and not affiliated with the Internal Revenue Service or any government body in any way.

We think saying that plainly is worth more than a stock photo of someone in a suit. What we can offer instead of credentials is method: every figure is sourced, every calculation is tested, and the arithmetic is shown on screen so you can check it yourself.

Why the site exists

The 2025 tax law created two deductions — for qualified tips and qualified overtime — that affect tens of millions of workers. The coverage of them has been consistently misleading: people were told their tips would be tax-free and their paychecks would grow, and neither is true. Meanwhile the large payroll calculators still model the old rules.

There was a gap between what people were told and what the law says. These calculators are an attempt to close it.

How the calculators are built

• Every rate, bracket and threshold lives in a single data file with a citation to the primary source and the date it was last checked. No number is inferred or estimated.
• The tax engine is covered by a test suite in which every expected value was computed by hand from the published tables. If a test fails, the engine is wrong.
• Everything runs in your browser. There is no server, no account, no database and no analytics on what you type. Your salary never leaves your device because there is nowhere for it to go.

What we refuse to publish

A state appears in the calculator only after its rules have been verified against that state’s own revenue department and covered by tests. Until then the tool tells you the state line is missing.

The same applies to filing statuses: married filing separately is not offered, both because we have not verified its 2026 brackets against a primary source and because that status cannot claim these deductions at all.

Publishing a confident wrong number is worse than publishing nothing. That rule costs us traffic and we are keeping it.

Corrections

If you find an error, tell us and we will fix it and say what changed. See the contact page. Our sources page lists every primary document the calculators rely on.