What do your federal taxes pay for?
Enter some of your details into this calculator and get a tax receipt showing how much you spend on national defense, Medicare, and more.
The federal government’s biggest spending priorities in fiscal year 2024 were spent $1.5 trillion on Social Security, $874 billion on Medicare, and $877 billion on national defense. How much of that came from your taxes? The Microsoft AI for Good Lab used budget data from the Office of Management and Budget, analyzed by USAFacts, to estimate how your tax dollars are allocated across $6.8 trillion in federal spending.
Some things to note before you begin:
- We know taxes are complicated. This calculator estimates payroll and income taxes. It does not account for tax credits, itemized deductions, or other adjustments that affect individual tax bills.
- Federal spending is complicated too. (For a breakdown of how taxes are allocated, see the calculator’s methodology.)
- The calculator does not retain any personal information.
- Click the line items in the receipt for even more spending details.
How the tool calculates your taxes:
The calculator asks for household income, marital status, and employment status to estimate three federal personal taxes.
Social Security tax:
This is based on your income (or about 92% of it if you are self-employed). If you’re employed, 6.2% of your income goes to Social Security, or 12.4% if you’re self-employed. There’s a cap, so you only pay this tax up to a certain income level. In 2024, that was $168,600. In 2026, that was $184,500.
Medicare tax:
This is also based on your income (or about 92% of it if you’re self-employed). You pay 1.45% of your income to Medicare if you’re employed, or 2.9% if you’re self-employed. If you earn more, you’ll pay an extra 0.9% on income above:
- $200,000 if you’re single
- $250,000 if you’re married
Federal income tax:
First, the tool applies a standard deduction to the income you entered. The deduction is $14,600 if you’re single, $29,200, if you’re married. After that you are taxed based on the income tax brackets. The tool applies a $2,000 tax credit for every child under 17.
How the receipt allocates your taxes:
This step takes your estimated taxes and uses USAFacts budget data to show how they might be distributed across different areas of federal spending. It uses preliminary fiscal year 2025 spending totals to estimate how much of your tax dollars go to programs like Social Security, Medicare, and everything else the federal government funds.
To do this, it considers total federal spending and calculates how large each category is as a share of that total. This includes major programs like Social Security and Medicare, as well as all other programs grouped together (we’ll get to those later). These shares help determine how your taxes are proportionally allocated.
Next, your estimated taxes — including income tax, Social Security tax, and Medicare tax — are combined into a single total. The receipt estimates how much of that total would go toward Social Security and Medicare based on national spending patterns.
First up: payroll taxes. Obviously, your Social Security taxes go toward Social Security spending, and your Medicare taxes go toward Medicare spending. If those taxes don’t fully cover the estimated amounts, income tax makes up the difference. If there’s more payroll tax than needed, the excess is shown as “savings” for those programs.
Finally, any remaining income tax is distributed across all other federal programs. Each program receives a share based on its portion of total federal spending.
Read more about who doesn't pay federal taxes and get the latest data in your inbox by subscribing to our newsletter.
Keep exploring
Page sources
Office of Management and Budget
Historical Tables
