Reconstruct the earnings side from time and compensation records
For a salaried worker, begin with either annual salary converted by the selected frequency or a known amount for the current period. For an hourly worker, multiply the regular rate by documented regular hours. When clock records are the source, the time card calculator can total declared intervals, but breaks, rounding policies, compensable time, and corrections still must agree with the employer's timekeeping rules.
Overtime is a separate earnings component in hourly mode: eligible hours multiplied by the regular rate and the entered premium multiplier. Check that arithmetic with the overtime calculator without assuming every hour above a schedule is legally overtime. Add a bonus and other earnings only when they belong to this pay date, and preserve their labels so a later audit can distinguish recurring wages from an exceptional payment.
Build gross pay before assigning any tax treatment
The calculator's gross amount is the sum of base earnings, entered overtime, bonus, and other cash earnings. That total is an accounting checkpoint, not automatically the base for every tax. A separately paid bonus may have its federal withholding determined under supplemental-wage rules; the bonus tax calculator is the better place to keep that declared method visible rather than disguising it as ordinary salary.
List deductions according to documented cash and tax effects. A pre-tax medical deduction may reduce federal-income-tax wages and perhaps FICA wages; a traditional elective deferral may affect federal income-tax wages without reducing Social Security or Medicare wages; an after-tax deduction reduces net cash only. Plan documents and the employer's payroll coding establish those effects. The word pretax by itself is not enough to populate all three bases.
Calculate the three federal employee tax lines independently
Federal income-tax withholding for a 2020-or-later Form W-4 follows the 2026 Publication 15-T automated percentage method in this workbench. It uses filing status, the multiple-jobs election, Step 3 credits, Step 4(a) other income, Step 4(b) deductions, Step 4(c) additional withholding, and the current exemption election. The federal tax calculator explains annual bracket tax, but it cannot replace a payroll-method calculation for one stub.
Social Security withholding applies its employee rate to the declared Social Security wage base subject to the annual limit and prior wages. Medicare withholding uses Medicare wages, while Additional Medicare withholding depends on wages paid by that employer after the statutory threshold. Prior-year-to-date amounts matter near both thresholds. The two taxes are not produced by dividing annual federal income tax, and Additional Medicare has no matching employer contribution.
Use the preview as an audit worksheet, never as an issued stub
Enter state and local withholding exactly as supported by the responsible jurisdiction or payroll record; the page does not infer either from an address. Employer Social Security and regular Medicare matches may be shown for planning, along with user-entered unemployment or other employer taxes, but those amounts are not employee deductions. Net pay subtracts employee taxes and cash deductions from gross earnings, while employer cost adds employer-side items on a separate ledger.
The generated layout is not a W-2, wage statement, legal pay stub, earnings verification, or authorization to pay anyone. Federal law requires employers to maintain accurate wage-and-hour records, and state pay-statement requirements can add different fields. Preserve source time records, rates, pay-period dates, W-4, benefit elections, jurisdictional forms, and payroll approvals. An actual employer record controls whenever it differs from this educational reconstruction.