Content Creator Tax Calculator

The calculator fills in a Form 1040 for a sole proprietor, line by line, then does it again with the creator income removed and reports the difference. The line-by-line table above shows every step for your own figures. In order:

1. Net profit. Gross creator income less business expenses (Schedule C).
2. Self-employment tax. Net profit times 92.35% gives net earnings from self-employment. Social Security takes 12.4% of those earnings up to the $184,500 wage base (wages from a job use the base up first), Medicare takes 2.9% of all of them, and the Additional Medicare Tax adds 0.9% on earned income over $200,000 ($250,000 joint, counting a spouse's wages, which never count toward your own wage base). Below $400 of net earnings there is no self-employment tax. A loss is carried through: no self-employment tax, and it offsets the other income below.
3. Adjustments. Half of the self-employment tax and any retirement contribution come off, then wages (yours and, on a joint return, your spouse's) are added, to reach adjusted gross income.
4. Deductions. The standard deduction ($16,100 single, $24,150 head of household, $32,200 joint), then the qualified business income deduction: 20% of the business income, limited to 20% of taxable income, with a floor of $400 once the business earns $1,000. Above $201,750 of taxable income ($403,500 joint) the deduction phases out for a business with no employees, down to the $400 floor at $276,750 ($553,500 joint); the phase-out is applied first and the taxable-income cap after, the order Form 8995-A uses. Endorsement and appearance income is a specified service business in the IRS's eyes, which loses the deduction faster and entirely past that point; the switch under the retirement box applies that treatment.
5. Federal income tax. Taxable income through the 2026 rate schedule for your filing status, 10% to 37%.
6. State income tax. Your state's own rules on the same starting figure: none in 9 states, a flat rate in some, brackets in the rest, with the state's standard deduction or personal exemption where it has one.
7. Quarterly payment. A quarter of the tax attributable to the creator income, shown with the next due date from the IRS schedule.

Left out on purpose, and each one would make your bill lower or higher: itemized deductions; tax credits (including the child tax credit); the self-employed health insurance deduction; the new qualified-tips deduction (up to $25,000 on Schedule 1-A, phasing out above $150,000 of income; under the final 2026 rules a voluntary payment made after the viewer already has access can count as a tip, but only the creator's share does; whether creators are barred as a specified service business is still open, and the IRS names no platform product); the 2026 charitable deduction for non-itemizers (up to $1,000, $2,000 joint); the extra standard deduction for age 65 or blindness; city and county income tax (the result card names the big ones by state); state credits; married filing separately; and the S-corp route. A loss is allowed to offset your other income; the hobby-loss and at-risk rules that can disallow one are not checked. Where a state had not published its complete 2026 figures when the page was reviewed (California had announced indexed amounts but not its full schedules), the previous year's are used and the result card says so.