About this calculator
The short version: this is a free, no-signup tax estimator for people who drive for a living. It runs entirely in your browser, it tells you when it is guessing, and it does not pretend to be tax advice.
Who publishes this
The Gig Worker Tax Calculator is published and maintained by the team behind gigworkertaxcalculator.com. We are not an accounting firm, and we are not affiliated with Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, Amazon Flex, or any other platform named on this site.
You can reach a person at hello@gigworkertaxcalculator.com.
Why it exists
Gig work has an unusual tax shape, and the usual advice does not fit it well. A driver is not an employee, so nothing is withheld. But a driver is also not a traditional freelancer, because the largest single deduction — business mileage — is calculated with a method most people have never heard of, is split mid-year into two different rates, and depends on keeping records nobody told them to keep.
The result is a large group of people who are genuinely surprised by what they owe, usually in mid-April, usually with a penalty attached. We thought the useful thing to build was a tool that shows the number early enough to do something about it, and explains the reasoning behind the number rather than just displaying it.
How it is built, and why that matters to you
Every calculation happens in your own browser. There is no account, no sign-up, and no server that receives your figures. That is not a marketing line; it is the architecture:
- There is no backend to send your income to. The site is static files.
- There is no database of visitor figures to breach or sell.
- Your entries are saved in your own browser’s local storage, so they survive a refresh. They are never transmitted. See the Privacy Policy for the detail.
This site does carry Google advertising, which is how it stays free. Ad code is third-party code and is covered separately in the Privacy Policy — including what it can and cannot see.
What we are careful about
Tax software that sounds more confident than it is causes real harm. So this tool is built around a few rules:
- It names its gaps. Where a real liability depends on something we cannot know — local city income tax, multi-state filing, an S-corporation election — the tool says so instead of quietly producing a number that ignores it. See How we calculate.
- It labels projections as projections. If official IRS figures for a year have not been published yet, the tool says it is using projected baselines rather than presenting an estimate as an authority.
- It shows its working. Every headline figure can be traced through an itemized breakdown, and each line explains what it means in plain English.
- It is honest about the last step. A planning estimate is not a filed return. Confirm anything that matters with a licensed tax professional or the IRS directly.
What it covers
Federal self-employment tax, federal income tax, the IRS standard mileage deduction (including the mid-year rate split), the Section 199A qualified business income deduction, and state income tax for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Federal figures are modelled in detail; state figures are a single planning rate everywhere except California and New York, which use their real graduated brackets. That distinction is documented on How we calculate rather than buried.
It is not tax advice
This tool produces an educational planning estimate. It is not tax, legal, or financial advice, and using it does not create any professional relationship. Read the full Disclaimer.
Contact
Questions, corrections, and bug reports all go to the same place: hello@gigworkertaxcalculator.com. We especially want to hear about a figure that looks wrong — a rate that has changed, a bracket that has moved, or a state rule we have described incorrectly. Accuracy is the whole product.
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