How much tax is taken out of my paycheck in South Carolina?

A good deal more at zero allowances than at one. South Carolina's formula subtracts nothing from the annualised wage of an employee who claims none, while one or more brings in the allowance amounts and the standard deduction before the schedule takes its share. The filing status, by contrast, does not move the South Carolina line at all, since every status reads the same schedule and the same deduction.

What is the current income tax rate in South Carolina?

For withholding it is a short schedule rather than one rate: a first band charged at nothing, then rising rates, shared by every filing status. The rates sit in the schedule printed further down, read from the state's own withholding formula, so they change when the Department of Revenue republishes it.

Why does claiming zero allowances raise my South Carolina withholding so much?

Because the standard deduction is tied to the allowances. The state's formula grants it only to an employee claiming one or more, so zero allowances gives up the allowance amounts and the deduction together. Enter zero and then one in the calculator to see the size of that step for your own pay.

Do 401(k) and cafeteria plan deductions lower South Carolina withholding?

Yes. The withholding statute keeps out of wages any payment to a benefit plan that is excluded from South Carolina taxable income, and that income starts from the federal figure without carving out either a 401(k) or a cafeteria plan. Both reductions therefore come off before the state line is worked out.

South Carolina paycheck calculator

South Carolina hangs its whole deduction on one question: does the employee claim at least one allowance? With none, nothing at all comes off the annualised wage. With one or more, each allowance takes a fixed sum off, and a standard deduction set as a share of gross pay, up to a ceiling, comes off with them. Every filing status then reads the same schedule.

Take-home pay

$1,596.08

per bi-weekly (26 per year) period

Gross pay: $2,000.00
Federal Income Tax: −$156.15
Social Security: −$124.00
Medicare: −$29.00
SC State Income Tax: −$94.77
Net pay: $1,596.08

Carries these figures into a full South Carolina pay stub you can preview and download.

How South Carolina withholding is worked out

That makes the first allowance worth more to the base than any other. It brings the standard deduction with it, so moving from none to one changes the state line by at least as much as moving from one to two. The calculator opens at zero allowances, the way an employee claiming none is withheld, so enter your own count before comparing with a stub. The schedule starts with a band charged at nothing and rises from there. The wages it reads leave out both a 401(k) deferral and a cafeteria plan premium, because South Carolina takes its taxable income from federal law and its list of federal sections it does not follow names neither.

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.

South Carolina reads one schedule whatever the filing status. Wages are annualised first, so the figures below are annual.

Every filing status
Annual wages	Tax on the lower figure	Rate on the rest
$0.00 to $3,640.00	$0.00	0%
$3,640.00 to $18,230.00	$0.00	3%
$18,230.00 and up	$437.70	6%

Exemption per allowance: $5,000.00
Taken off the income before the schedule.
Standard deduction: 10% of annual wages, up to $7,500.00 a year
Taken off the income before the schedule. Only for an employee who claims at least one allowance.

South Carolina defines its own wages and then hands the two deductions back to federal law. SC Code 12-8-520(A) makes the employer withhold on wages; 12-8-520(D) defines wages as all remuneration except eleven items, of which (9) is remuneration paid "in the form of payments to or from employee benefit plans which are excluded from South Carolina taxable income"; 12-6-560 computes a resident's South Carolina taxable income "as determined under the Internal Revenue Code" with the modifications in Article 9; and 12-6-50, the list of Code sections the state does not adopt, names neither section 125 nor section 401. So a cafeteria premium and a 401(k) deferral are excluded from South Carolina taxable income and therefore out of South Carolina wages.

South Carolina sources

Frequently asked questions

What South Carolina law asks of a pay stub

Whether a stub is required, how it may be delivered, and the minimum wage and pay frequency rules.

South Carolina pay stub requirements