A single filer earning $75,000 takes home $61,592.50 a year in Alaska, Florida and seven other states with no income tax, and $58,024.79 in Illinois, the lowest of the 24 states Calcora tracks. That is a $3,567.71 annual gap, or $297.31 a month, and it comes from state tax alone. We built the full breakdown, with every state and a free CSV, in our $75,000 take-home pay by state study.
Why the entire gap is state tax
Run the same $75,000 gross through every state and two numbers never move: federal income tax comes out to $7,670 and FICA (Social Security plus Medicare) comes out to $5,737.50, for every single filer with no pre-tax deductions in every one of the 24 states. Social Security tax is 6.2% up to the 2026 wage base of $184,500, and Medicare is 1.45% with no cap, so a $75,000 salary never gets close to either ceiling. That means the entire $3,567.71 spread between the best and worst state is state income tax, dollar for dollar. The state column does all the work.
The no-tax cluster
Nine states charge no income tax on wages: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. Every one nets exactly $61,592.50 a year on $75,000, or $5,132.71 a month, since $7,670 federal plus $5,737.50 FICA is the only subtraction. Dana, a project coordinator in Austin, is one of them: her math is $75,000 minus $7,670 federal minus $5,737.50 FICA, and nothing else, because Texas has no state income tax to subtract. That is the effective ceiling for a $75,000 single filer under this study's assumptions: no local tax, no county tax, no pre-tax deductions.
Two more states, worked out
Marcus, an operations analyst in Chicago on the same $75,000, pays Illinois's flat income tax on top of the same federal and FICA bill. Illinois takes $3,567.71, so his net is $75,000 minus $7,670 minus $5,737.50 minus $3,567.71, which comes to $58,024.79, or $4,835.40 a month. That is the lowest net of the 24 states in the study.
Priya, a marketing manager in Sacramento, is the study's genuine surprise. California's headline rate is 13.3%, which is the 12.3% top bracket plus a 1% Mental Health Services Tax that applies only above $1 million, and neither figure touches a $75,000 salary. After the $5,706 single standard deduction, her taxable income of $69,294 falls in California's 8% bracket, and her actual state tax is $2,927.57, for a net of $58,664.93, ranking 17th of 24, ahead of Michigan, Georgia, Maryland, New York, Massachusetts, Virginia and Illinois. High headline rates and high take-home tax at a mid-five-figure salary are two different things.
Why your paycheck calculator might show a different number
If you run $75,000 through a different calculator, or through your own pay stub, and get a number 2 to 5 percent off from this study, it is almost never a bug. Three things commonly explain the gap. Local tax: New York City residents pay about $2,472 more than this study's New York row, because the state-only figure excludes city tax. County tax: a Montgomery County, Maryland resident pays about $2,211 more than the state-only Maryland figure, since every Maryland county adds its own rate on top of the state's. Pre-tax deductions: a 6% traditional 401(k) deferral on $75,000 is $4,500, and it lowers federal taxable income (never FICA wages), which cuts federal tax by $990 a year in a no-tax state like Texas.
The states that aren't fully on 2026 tables yet
Four of the 15 income-tax states in this study are still priced on their verified 2025 tables because at least one 2026 figure could not be confirmed from the state's own documents: California, Arizona, New Jersey and Maryland. California is the clearest case: the Franchise Tax Board has not released a 2026 tax table, and its own 2026 Form 540-ES instructions tell taxpayers to estimate next year's tax using the 2025 table and the 2025 standard deduction, so that is what this study does too. Arizona's flat 2.5% rate for 2026 is confirmed, but its standard deduction (which mirrors the federal amount) is still the 2025 figure. New Jersey publishes one rate schedule headed 2020 and after with nothing labelled 2026, and Maryland's 2026 brackets and county rates are confirmed while its standard deduction is not yet published, so both stay on 2025 until a labelled document appears.
Ohio's 2026 brackets are applied here, but its personal exemption is still the 2025 figure because Ohio hasn't issued a 2026 amount.
For the $50,000 and $100,000 versions of this comparison and the sortable table for all 24 states, see the full study or download the raw CSV. If you want to run your own salary and state, start with the Texas paycheck calculator or the California paycheck calculator, and see our state-by-state income tax guide for how each state's brackets actually work.
Key takeaways
- On $75,000, federal income tax ($7,670) and FICA ($5,737.50) are identical in all 24 states this study covers, so every dollar of the state-to-state gap is state income tax.
- The nine no-income-tax states all net $61,592.50 a year; Illinois is the lowest of the 24 at $58,024.79, a $3,567.71 gap.
- California's 8% marginal rate at $75,000 nets $58,664.93, ranking 17th of 24, well ahead of its 13.3% headline reputation.
Sources
- IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32, 2026 federal income tax brackets and standard deduction
- Social Security Administration, 2026 wage base determination, FR Doc. 2025-19763
- Per-state income tax figures, data year and source for all 24 states: see the source table on the research page
Figures reflect 2026 federal rules and the state data in Calcora's tax tables. Reviewed by the Calcora editorial team.