How to use the SALT deduction calculator
- Pick your filing status and enter your MAGI. For most people that is the adjusted gross income on Form 1040, line 11. The cap depends on it.
- Enter the state and local taxes you pay in 2026: income tax withheld and paid, or general sales tax if that is larger, real estate tax, and value-based personal property tax such as part of a car registration.
- Add your other itemized deductions (mortgage interest, charity, medical expenses) so the calculator can compare itemizing with the standard deduction.
- Read your cap, the deductible SALT and the verdict. The table under the calculator shows how the cap shrinks with income for your filing status.
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The SALT cap for 2026
Since 2018 the deduction for state and local taxes has been capped. The 2025 law Pub. L. 119-21 raised the cap from $10,000 to $40,000 for 2025 and $40,400 for 2026, growing by 1% a year through 2029; it returns to $10,000 in 2030. Married people filing separately get half: $20,200.
The larger cap phases down with income. It is cut by 30% of your modified adjusted gross income over $505,000 ($252,500 married filing separately), but never below $10,000 ($5,000 married filing separately). A couple with $560,000 of MAGI has a cap of $40,400 − 30% × $55,000 = $23,900. From $606,333 of MAGI the cap is back at $10,000.
The cap is per return, not per person, and it covers the taxes you deduct on Schedule A only. Taxes on a rental property or a business go on Schedule E or C and aren’t capped.
Itemize or take the standard deduction?
The SALT deduction only helps if you itemize, and you itemize only when your itemized deductions beat the standard deduction: $16,100 for a single filer, $32,200 for a married couple filing jointly and $24,150 for a head of household in 2026, plus an extra amount for each of you who is 65 or older or blind. The calculator adds your deductible SALT to your mortgage interest, charity and medical costs, compares the total with the standard deduction, and estimates the federal income tax difference with the 2026 brackets.
Three other changes from 2026 are built in. Charitable gifts count only above 0.5% of AGI when you itemize. If you take the standard deduction, you can still deduct up to $1,000 ($2,000 joint) of cash gifts to charity. And if your income reaches the 37% bracket, itemized deductions are trimmed by 2/37 of the smaller of the deductions or the income in that bracket.
State and local taxes count in the year you pay them, and real estate taxes only once they have been assessed (Schedule A instructions).
The phase-down “torpedo”
Between $505,000 and about $606,333 of MAGI, each extra $1,000 of income takes $300 off a SALT deduction that is over the cap. If you itemize, that extra $1,000 is taxed as if it were $1,300. The calculator points it out when it applies to you.
Related calculators
Fix your paycheck withholding for the year with the W-4 withholding calculator, which takes your itemized deductions into account. The other new deductions from the same law have their own calculators: the senior deduction calculator, the no tax on tips calculator and the car loan interest deduction calculator. All of these are deducted whether or not you itemize.
Sources, checked October 25, 2026: Pub. L. 119-21, sections 70120 (IRC section 164(b)(6) and (7)), 70111 (section 68), 70424 and 70425 (section 170); IRS, Instructions for Schedule A (2025), State and Local Tax Deduction Worksheet; IRS, Form W-4 (2026), Deductions Worksheet; standard deductions and brackets: Rev. Proc. 2025-32. The 2026 Schedule A isn’t out yet as of October 2026; the 2026 figures come from the statute.