This is an interactive web page intended to help you understand your U.S. taxes.

You're viewing the source repository; try the graph itself at https://b-k.github.io/1040.js/ .

You might use this utility to answer questions like:

• What is the overall flow from income statements to the final refund?

• If my tax situation changes, like buying a house or having a kid, how does the shape of my taxes change?

• People keep telling me that having an IRA will reduce my tax bill. By how much?

• If I had a million dollars, what would my taxes look like? What would they look like if I made it all in capital gains?

• My mom/dad/libertarian friend complains about how taxes are overwhelmingly complicated, but I don't think they're so crazy difficult. How can I walk them through the process?

• A lawmaker has proposed changing tax law, like a flat tax or changing the mortgage interest deduction to a mortgage interest credit. How can I get an idea of what those changes would look like?

• If you have cloned a copy of the repository, you can rebuild with the version tagged 2017 and do a side-to-side comparison of how taxes worked before and after the reform in December 2017.

On privacy

The web page is completely standalone. All the math happens in your browser; no data is sent to any server.

Doing your taxes

If your sole interest is to "do" your taxes, you may prefer to use the Python project that uses the cell database from 1040.js to produce output that looks more like your tax form, at https://github.com/b-k/py1040 .

You can also file directly with the IRS using FFFF [ https://www.freefilefillableforms.com ]. IRS form 1040 was first developed in 1913, and largely retains the same organization as the original. Technically, it does not hide intermediate steps from the user, but it is hard to argue that its layout of a long list of lines, many of which refer to lines on other forms, makes the flow at all clear.

FFFF is written, but at best partially maintained, by Intuit, and leaves the user to do some calculations him or herself. So it can be productive to check your math using this tax graph or py1040, then use the results to fill in the missing calculations at FFFF.

Caveats

The tax graph on this form is incomplete. For example, the earned income credit calculation is in place, but if you are a member of the clergy there is a different calculation. There are some details for people making over $155,000/year (AGI) which we will handle if any of the contributors ever have that problem. The code is open source, and you are encouraged to add cells or logical nuances that apply to your situation; see Contributing.md for details.

Generally covered

• The overall flow of the 1040
• Student loan interest deduction
• Education Credits (f8863, up to 3 students)
• Earned Income Credit
• Child Tax Credit, including refundable portion
• Schedule A, itemized deductions
• Schedule E, rental/royalty income
• Alternative minimum tax (f6251, but the simpler of the two calculations)
• f8582, real estate loss carryover

Citing it

Here is some information for citing this project in an academic setting:

Author = Ben Klemens

Title = 1040.js

DOI = 10.5281/zenodo.1054109

year = 2017

The author does work at the US Treasury's Office of Tax Analysis, but because this is an unofficial release in no way officially reviewed by Treasury, please do not list an author affiliation.