gross income
Your income before tax and deductions.
Income included for tax purposes before adjustments, deductions and withholding.
What that means in practice
On a job offer, this is your pay before tax and other payroll deductions. Gross income can also include other taxable income, such as interest. It is not the same as taxable income or the pay that reaches your account. The calculators on this site show the gap between gross pay and what you keep.
Gross income is the starting point for the personal income-tax calculation. Taxable income is the amount left after applicable adjustments and deductions. Employee payroll taxes use covered wages: Social Security has a wage ceiling, while Medicare does not. Total tax divided by gross income gives an average rate on that income measure. It does not establish the rate on additional income.
Questions people ask
Who decides this — the federal government or my state?
Both, separately. That is what makes income tax confusing. Congress sets the federal version. Every state that taxes income sets its own. So gross income can exist federally and not in your state. Or it can exist in both, with different numbers behind the same word.
Do I need to understand other terms before this one makes sense?
Usually, yes. gross income sits in a small cluster of related ideas rather than standing alone. The linked terms below are the ones it leans on. Reading it in isolation causes most of the confusion about it.
I have seen this called something else. Is it the same thing?
Same thing, different label. gross income has more than one common name, and the page lists them precisely because searching the wrong one leads nowhere.
At which level of government is this determined?
Income tax concepts are defined independently at federal and state level. States may conform to the federal definition, conform selectively, or define their own; conformity is legislated and can be static (tied to a fixed date) or rolling. ⚠️ A federal change therefore propagates to some states automatically and to others only by subsequent state action.
What conceptual dependencies does this term carry?
This term has multiple conceptual dependencies, enumerated in the related-terms list. Definitions in tax law are frequently mutually referential — a provision's meaning depends on defined terms elsewhere in the code — so isolated reading commonly produces error.
What alternative designations refer to this concept?
This concept is referred to by multiple designations across statutory text, agency guidance, payroll documentation and common usage. The alternatives are enumerated on this page. ⚠️ Terminology divergence is a frequent source of error where a statutory term and its colloquial equivalent are not exactly co-extensive.