Legally Lower Your Tax Bill
US tax planning tools and guides: marginal versus effective rates, pre-tax account strategy, and take-home pay optimization.
Your step-by-step path
- 1
Find your actual marginal rate
Every tax decision — pre-tax versus Roth, timing a bonus, taking a deduction — depends on your marginal rate, not your effective one. Most people know neither.
Open the Paycheck Calculator - 2
Fill tax-advantaged space in the right order
401(k) to the match, then HSA if eligible, then IRA, then back to the 401(k). The HSA is the only triple-tax-advantaged account in the US code and is routinely underused.
Open the Retirement Savings Calculator - 3
Choose pre-tax or Roth deliberately
Pre-tax wins when your rate in retirement will be lower than today's; Roth wins when it'll be higher. Early-career and mid-retirement-gap years favor Roth; peak earning years usually favor pre-tax.
Open the Retirement Savings Calculator - 4
Check whether itemizing beats the standard deduction
Around 90% of filers take the standard deduction. Itemizing generally only wins with substantial mortgage interest, large charitable giving, or high medical expenses.
Tools for lower taxes
Retirement Savings Calculator
Find your target, see the gap, and check whether you are leaving employer money behind.
Paycheck Calculator
Federal tax, FICA, state tax and deductions — see exactly what lands in your account.
Federal Income Tax Calculator
Bracket-by-bracket breakdown, your effective rate, and what the next dollar costs.
Capital Gains Tax Calculator
Estimate the federal tax on an investment sale — short-term vs long-term, with the 3.8% surtax where it applies.
Roth IRA Calculator
See what your contributions grow into — and how much of that growth is yours completely tax-free.
Self-Employment Tax Calculator
Estimate the Social Security and Medicare tax on your business profit — the extra 15.3% W-2 workers never see.
Property Tax Calculator
Estimate your property tax from your home's value and local rate, including exemptions and the monthly escrow cost.
Traditional vs Roth IRA Calculator
Compare pre-tax and after-tax retirement saving on your own tax rates — including the side fund a deduction buys.
RMD Calculator
Work out the minimum you must withdraw from a retirement account this year — and the tax that comes with it.
401(k) Early Withdrawal Calculator
See what's left after income tax and the 10% penalty — and what that money would have become if you left it alone.
Roth Conversion Calculator
Compare converting now and paying tax today against leaving the money to grow and be taxed in retirement.
1099 Tax Calculator
Estimate self-employment tax plus federal income tax on 1099 income — and what to set aside each quarter.
Quarterly Tax Calculator
Work out what to send the IRS each quarter so you avoid underpayment penalties and an April surprise.
W-4 Withholding Calculator
Estimate whether your current withholding leaves you with a refund or a bill — and what to change on your W-4.
Bonus Tax Calculator
See the flat 22% federal withholding on a bonus, what lands in your account, and how it settles at filing.
Cost of Living Calculator
Work out the salary you'd need in a new city to keep the same standard of living — including the state tax difference.
Go deeper
The topic hubs behind this goal, with every related tool and guide.
Taxes
Know your real marginal rate before you make a tax decision.
16 tools
Retirement
Find the number you need, and the date it becomes reachable.
16 tools
Salary & Income
Translate an offer into the number that lands in your account.
16 tools
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Tell the AI coach about your situation and get a personalized version of this path.
Lower Taxes questions
What is the best way to reduce taxable income?
Maximize pre-tax retirement contributions and HSA contributions — these reduce taxable income dollar for dollar and are available to most employees without any complexity. Beyond that, tax-loss harvesting in taxable brokerage accounts and bunching charitable deductions into alternating years are the two most broadly applicable strategies.
Is a large tax refund good?
Not particularly. A refund means you overpaid throughout the year and lent the government money at zero interest. Adjusting your W-4 to reduce withholding puts that money in your paycheck instead, where it can earn a yield or pay down debt. The exception is behavioral — if the refund is the only way you save a lump sum, that has genuine value.
Should I do a Roth conversion?
Conversions work best in low-income years — early retirement before Social Security begins, a sabbatical, a job change — when you can move money at a lower rate than you'd otherwise pay later. The tax is due in the conversion year, so it needs to be paid from outside the account for the strategy to make sense.