Calculator

Where do your federal taxes go?

Enter your income and see the path every dollar takes, from your paycheck through the Mandatory, Discretionary, and Net Interest categories to the largest FY2025 spending functions.

Federal income tax

$13,614

Social Security payroll

$6,200

Medicare payroll

$1,450

Military spending

$2,815

Total to Washington

$21,264

Where every dollar flows, $28,871 total

Sankey diagram of federal budget allocationFlow from revenue sources on the left, through Mandatory, Discretionary, and Net Interest categories in the middle, to the largest budget functions on the right. Total flow: $28,871.Federal income tax $13,614Social Security payroll $6,200Medicare payroll $1,450Borrowed (deficit) $7,607Mandatory $18,289Discretionary $6,908Net Interest $3,674$8,418 Social Security$1,969 Medicare$3,836 Health (Medicaid and ACA)$2,711 Income Security$1,355 Veterans' Benefits$3,822 National Defense$1,043 Education and Training$563 Transportation$1,480 Everything Else$3,674 Net Interest

Bar heights are proportional to flow. Red bars and strokes mark borrowed dollars. Tap Enlarge for a readable view.

How this works

Social Security and Medicare are funded by dedicated payroll (FICA) taxes that flow straight to their own trust funds. Your FICA payments route directly to those programs in the diagram.

Your federal income tax funds everything else, split across budget functions in proportion to FY2025 outlays.

In FY2025, the government spent about $7T while collecting only $5.2T in taxes. The gap of $1.8T was borrowed. That borrowed share shows up as a red "Borrowed (deficit)" input on the left.

Budget figures are FY2025 actuals from the CBO Monthly Budget Review for Fiscal Year 2025 (Nov 2025) and the September 2025 Monthly Treasury Statement. Function-level outlays follow the OMB Superfunction / Function grouping used in Historical Table 3.1. All values are integer cents.

Sources