What this site is for
Almost every country publishes its tax rates clearly. What almost none of them explain is how the pieces interact — and that is where the surprises live. A rate table will tell you the top rate is 45%; it will not tell you there is a band below it where the marginal rate is 60%. That gap between the published rates and the arithmetic they produce is what these 79 calculators exist to close.
Every figure comes from the authority that publishes it — HMRC, the IRS, the ATO, 国税庁, the CRA, Revenue.ie, the Belastingdienst, IRAS and their equivalents — and each calculator is checked against an official worked example before it goes live. Each page names its source and the date its rate data was last updated. How we build and verify them is set out in our methodology.
Seven things the rate tables don't tell you
These are all conclusions we reached by working through the rules of each system, not by copying anyone's summary. Each one is explained with the arithmetic on that country's page.
- United Kingdom — between £100,000 and £125,140 the effective marginal rate is 60%, higher than the 45% top rate above it, because the personal allowance is withdrawn at 50p per extra pound.
- United States — the marginal rate falls by 6.2 points at $184,500 when Social Security stops, so a $190,000 earner keeps more of the next dollar than a $150,000 earner.
- Ireland — earning €1 above €13,000 triggers USC on your entire income, leaving you €78.84 worse off; you do not recover until €13,082.
- Japan — because the basic deduction falls in steps, at a salary of ¥4,750,000 one extra yen of income costs ¥11,893 in take-home pay.
- Austria — the 13th and 14th salary payments are taxed at an effective 5.68% where the same money inside a monthly salary would be taxed at 41%.
- Poland — employees under 26 pay no income tax up to 85,528 zł, so two colleagues on the same salary can differ by 11,550 zł a year.
- Switzerland — the same CHF 100,000 salary leaves CHF 12,280 more per year in Zug than in Basel, and your pension deduction rises as you age.
What we will not do
We are an independent information service, not licensed tax advisers, and we say so on every page. That shapes what belongs here and what does not:
- No invented numbers. If we cannot source a figure from the responsible authority, it does not appear. Where a variable must be assumed — a German health-insurance supplement, a Swiss municipal multiplier — we state the assumption rather than hide it.
- Limits stated on the page. Every calculator lists what it excludes. Scotland sets its own income tax bands and our UK pay calculator says so; Swiss municipal rates vary within cantons and our Swiss page says so.
- No personal advice. These are estimates for orientation. For a binding figure, use your tax authority's own calculator or a qualified professional in your country.
- AI disclosure. Calculation logic and every rate are written and verified by hand. Some explanatory prose is drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by a human before publication — details here.
Found an error? Tell us — a correction is worth more to us than a compliment, and we publish the date each country's data was last touched so you can see how current it is.