Illinois paycheck calculator
Illinois charges one rate rather than a graduated schedule, which puts it in a small group with Pennsylvania. What separates the two is the allowance: Illinois lets a fixed sum come off the income for each one claimed on the state's certificate before the rate is applied at all.
Take-home pay
$1,591.85
per bi-weekly (26 per year) period
- Gross pay
- $2,000.00
- Federal Income Tax
- −$156.15
- Social Security
- −$124.00
- Medicare
- −$29.00
- IL State Income Tax
- −$99.00
- Net pay
- $1,591.85
Carries these figures into a full Illinois pay stub you can preview and download.
How Illinois withholding is worked out
A single rate makes Illinois look like a state where nothing on the form matters, and that reading is wrong. The allowance is worth a substantial sum against the income, so somebody claiming several sees a visibly smaller state line than somebody claiming none on the same wage. Because the rate does not climb, an allowance is worth exactly the same number of dollars to every employee in the state, however much they earn, which is not true anywhere the rate rises with pay.
These are withholding figures: what an employer takes out of one paycheck, which is not the same calculation as the one on an annual return.
Illinois reads one schedule whatever the filing status. Wages are annualised first, so the figures below are annual.
| Annual wages | Tax on the lower figure | Rate on the rest |
|---|---|---|
| $0.00 and up | $0.00 | 4.95% |
- Exemption per allowance
- $2,925.00
Taken off the income before the schedule.
Form IL-W-4's Line 2 allowance of $1,000 is not applied here, so an employee entitled to it has less Illinois tax withheld than this line shows.
Only the $2,925 Line 1 allowance is modelled; the separate $1,000 Line 2 allowance is not. The base is the federal one, and the withholding regulation says so in both directions rather than in the usual one only. 86 Ill. Adm. Code 100.7000(a) requires the employer who withholds federal income tax under 26 USC 3401 through 3404 to withhold from the same compensation, computed under IITA sections 701 and 702, and then closes the other half: Illinois income tax "is not required to be withheld on any compensation paid in this State of a character which is not subject to federal income tax withholding". A cafeteria premium and a retirement deferral are out of the wage 26 USC 3401(a) defines, so they are out of the Illinois base with it, which the section's own fourth example works through for 3401(a)(12). Neither the statute nor Publication 130 gets this far: 35 ILCS 5/1501 defines compensation without excluding anything, and the publication states the sufficiency half alone.
Illinois sources
Frequently asked questions
What Illinois law asks of a pay stub
Whether a stub is required, how it may be delivered, and the minimum wage and pay frequency rules.