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Explore the page
- 01
Key figures for the selected year
The page opens on one plan year — year 1 until another is chosen — and a row of cards for it: all taxes with the effective rate, taxable income as the federal and state returns each see it, the federal and state bills each with the rate on the next dollar, payroll tax where the plan ever pays it, property tax, and what pre-tax contributions save off that year’s income tax.
A household with a spouse also sees what filing together costs or saves against two single returns. Cards for withdrawal tax and for capital gains tax on a property appear only in a plan that ever pays them. A switch at the top shows every figure in today’s purchasing power or in the dollars of each year.
- 02
Annual tax chart
One stacked bar per year gathers every tax the projection levies — federal, state, local, payroll, property, tax on savings interest, and capital gains tax on a property sale — in the colors the cash flow chart already uses. A line over the bars is the effective rate, read on the right axis: recurring taxes as a share of that year’s income.
The line breaks where a year has nothing coming in rather than dropping to zero. Hovering a bar lists the taxes it pays, names the part of the federal and state bills owed on withdrawals and the federal tax on dividends, and gives the total and the effective rate; the capital gains key appears only when the plan ever sells property.
Property sales, retirements and other events are marked on the bars.
- 03
Details for one year
Beside the chart, a panel holds the selected year: its calendar year, each person’s age, any events that land in it, and a slider with previous and next buttons.
Below are expandable figures — all taxes by kind, taxable income by source, the effective rate with the income it is measured on, federal and state tax with the share from withdrawals, payroll split into Social Security, Medicare, Additional Medicare and state payroll tax, and property tax.
Rows for interest tax, dividend tax and capital gains tax appear only in a plan that ever pays them; tax on withdrawals, the withdrawal rate and the required minimum distribution appear only in a year that has them. Embedded tax, after-tax net worth and taxes paid so far close the list.
- 04
Bracket ladders
Three ladders lay the selected year’s income across the rungs. The federal ladder starts with the untaxed rung — the standard deduction; an itemized figure shows on the worksheet’s deduction line, not here — then each bracket with how much landed in it and what that slice paid; the marginal rung is where the last dollar sits.
The state ladder uses the state’s own base and shelter, names an exemption or a federal-tax deduction where the state writes one, and shows a credit as a negative rung; a state with no income tax has no rungs.
A capital gains ladder, drawn only when the plan realizes a gain, shows the ordinary income already occupying each rung faintly and the gain stacked on top of it.
- 05
Tax on the next dollar
The tax map sweeps extra ordinary income across the selected year in $1,000 steps up to $300,000 and draws the all-in marginal rate as a stepped line: the brackets, the taxable share of Social Security dragged in with each dollar, long-term gains pushed off their 0% rung, and the net investment income tax (NIIT) together.
A cliff — one more dollar buying a Medicare surcharge tier two years on, or forfeiting the Affordable Care Act (ACA) credit — is a dashed vertical priced in dollars, never averaged into the line. Hovering a step splits its rate into federal, state, local, surtax and credit lost. Wages would add payroll tax on top of this curve.
- 06
Tax worksheets
Up to four tables detail the selected year. The payroll table, drawn where the plan ever pays payroll tax, prices Social Security at 6.2% up to the wage base per person, Medicare at 1.45% with no ceiling, Additional Medicare at 0.9% over the filing threshold, and a state levy where California or Oregon charges one.
“How the year is worked out” walks from cash income, less pre-tax contributions and untaxed income, plus pre-tax withdrawals, to taxable income, each tax, and take-home. “Taxes not yet owed” prices every pre-tax and brokerage balance and property gain as if realized in one year.
“What the year sold to pay for itself”, drawn where the plan ever draws on its accounts, lists withdrawals by kind, the required minimum inside them, the tax, the 10% early charge, and what was left to live on.
- 07
Cumulative tax at milestones
The last table names three checkpoints across the horizon — a third of the way, two thirds, and the final year, which at thirty years is 10, 20 and 30 — and the running total handed over by each: federal, state, payroll, property tax, capital gains where the plan ever sells property, the share of the income taxes owed on what was sold to live, and early-withdrawal charges.
The effective rate for each checkpoint year is printed underneath. A footer states the simplifications: employee-side payroll only, every brokerage gain treated as long-term, none of the exceptions to the 10% early charge, and required minimums from 73, or 75 for anyone born in 1960 or later.
What changes what
Controls & settings
Check what each control changes and whether it recalculates your forecast.
Shows every dollar on the page — cards, bars, worksheets, and the bracket boundaries on the ladders and the map — discounted to today’s purchasing power; rates are unchanged. The choice follows the reader to the Projection and Estate pages.
Pins that plan year: the headline cards, details panel, ladders, tax map and worksheets all switch to it, and it stays put when the pointer leaves.
Step the selected year back or forward one at a time, or jump to the first or last year.
Select the same plan year the chart click does, from 1 to the last year of the horizon.
Opens a tooltip for that year or that $1,000 step — the taxes paid with the total and effective rate, or the rate split into federal, state, local, surtax and credit, with any cliff inside the step priced in dollars. Hovering changes nothing else: the cards, panel, ladders and worksheets stay on the pinned year.
Reveals the rows behind it; a row that rounds to zero is left out.
Resizes the plot between 200 pixels and the window’s room; double-clicking returns the default, and the height is remembered for the next visit.
Reading the result
Read the results
The effective rate is recurring taxes divided by the year’s income, where income is the year’s cash income plus the taxable part of withdrawals, Roth conversions, interest and dividends. The capital gains tax on a property sale is in the bar and the total but deliberately not in the rate, and a year with nothing coming in has no rate at all.
“Capital gains & withdrawal tax” is already inside the federal and state figures, and “federal tax on dividends” inside the federal one, not added to them; they are named so a bar that grew in a retired year says why.
The rate “on the next dollar” on the cards is the bill’s change over the last dollar of the year’s income, which can run above the rung’s printed rate where a state walks its deduction down with income; the tax map goes further by adding the Social Security phase-in, displaced gains rungs, the surtax, and the cliffs.
“Taxes not yet owed” is a worst case — every balance and gain realized in one year and priced as that single return — not a forecast of what retirement will pay; spread across years it lands in lower brackets.
The ladders keep the same rungs whichever year is selected, sized to the highest income any year reaches, so only the fill moves; the rungs themselves are the selected year’s schedules, indexed forward at the plan’s inflation.
One plan, several readings
Related pages
Projection →
The bars here are the tax slices of the projection’s cash flow chart gathered into one place, in the same colors. The projection page’s “Income after tax” and “Income tax” sections carry the per-source bracket views (wage income, employer contributions, ordinary investment income, Roth conversions, capital gains income); those views are not on this page.
Tax Planning →
The tax map is the chart a Roth conversion or an extra withdrawal is sized against, and any conversion the plan already schedules is counted inside this page’s federal and state bills.
Plan resilience →
When a dealt run from the resilience page is being read, this page reads that run’s series and the inflation it lived, so its ladders and Medicare tiers belong to the run in view.
The plan’s own sections
The filing status, state, locality, and the Medicare and marketplace settings decide which schedules the page draws, and switching Medicare or marketplace coverage off removes that layer of cliffs from the map. A planned move is not handed to this page: its ladders, next-dollar rates and tax map are drawn for the plan’s home state in every year.
Keep following the math
Key concepts
Keep in mind
Model limits
Nothing on the page is a setting, and no control on it makes the engine project the plan again: the bars, cards and worksheets read the projection’s own rows, while the tax map and the pre-tax-savings and filing-together cards reprice the selected year on the engine’s schedules.
The tax map prices unearned ordinary income — a conversion, a withdrawal — and leaves payroll tax out; a wage dollar would pay that on top. A cliff is reported in dollars, never as a rate.
The five-category income-source bracket views live on the projection page’s sections, not here; the details panel on this page does not show that income analysis.
The federal deduction appears as one line on the worksheet — the larger of the standard and itemized figures — not as a line-by-line Schedule A ledger, and the federal ladder’s untaxed rung is the standard deduction alone.
The footer names the simplifications: employee-side payroll only, every brokerage gain assumed long-term, none of the exceptions to the 10% early-withdrawal charge, and rough estimates for exploring scenarios rather than tax advice.
This guide documents the page as built. The figures on it follow the plan’s own assumptions; none of it is individualized tax, legal, Medicare, or investment advice.