Accountants and Auditors in Arizona
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$63,492
after federal, FICA and Arizona tax
Tax takes
$16,478
20.6% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$62,798
Arizona costs more than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Arizona — roughly, since only five points along the band are published.
One filer, standard deduction, no dependants and nothing paid in before tax — the same household the rest of this page uses, so the comparison holds. City and school-district income taxes are not included.
Median here
$79,970
Kept after tax
$63,492
Worth in national money
$62,798
State rank
23
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Arizona pays accountants and auditors around $79,970 at the midpoint, 23 of 51 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Locally, this pays well. Among 491 occupations Arizona reports, accountants and auditors comes in at 109 — comfortably in the upper quarter.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $79,970, tax leaves $63,492, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $62,798 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $88,400, since top earners drag the number up.
- For accountants and auditors the Arizona median is $79,970, ranking 23 of 51 states reporting. Mid-band nominal positions are the ones most frequently reordered by the adjustments, because no large wage premium exists to absorb a state's tax or price level.
- Accountants and auditors ranks 109 of 491 occupations by median in Arizona, in the top quartile. Within-state position is largely independent of national position, so this holds regardless of how the state compares to others for the same work.
- Because Arizona sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for accountants and auditors — median $79,970 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $63,492 retained, $62,798 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $88,400 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
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Pay band: Accountants and Auditors
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $55,430 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $79,970 |
| Top tenth earn over | $128,890 |
| This salary | $79,970 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
The same pay, somewhere else
The state median for this job
| Take-home in Arizona | $63,492 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $65,089 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$4,183 |
State income tax and state price levels only. No city income tax, and no housing market.
What you would need there
The state median for this job
| To match take-home only | $77,700 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$5,778 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 101 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Treat $79,970 as a midpoint for Arizona, not a promise. The tenth percentile is $55,430 and the ninetieth is $128,890 — a wide band, and where you land in it depends on far more than the state.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Arizona's $63,492, worked from $79,970. That is on purpose. It lets states be compared with each other, not with each other's family circumstances. Local city taxes are left out. Locally this work ranks 109 of 491.
- One number stands for prices across all of Arizona, which is a simplification — big cities cost far more than small towns. Read $62,798, the adjusted value of that $79,970 median, as a way to compare states fairly, not as a quote for any particular place. The two datasets are also from different years. This job sits at 109 of 491 in the state.
- The Arizona median of $79,970 describes the midpoint of a distribution spanning $55,430 to $128,890. Because that spread is typically larger than the interstate spread, a state median is a weak predictor for any individual worker in this occupation.
- The Arizona take-home of $63,492, on $79,970 for work ranking 109 of 491 locally, models the simplest household deliberately: holding it constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful. It also means the absolute figure overstates liability for most real filers, and municipal income taxes are outside the model entirely. The occupation ranks 109 of 491 in the state.
- Price deflation uses one statewide parity for Arizona, so $62,798 — the adjusted value of that $79,970 median — establishes comparability between states rather than accuracy within one. The wage and parity series are dated independently, each following its own publication cycle, and neither is projected forward. This occupation sits at 109 of 491 locally.
Questions people ask
Is this the average pay for the job?
No — it is the middle. Half of these workers earn more and half earn less. The average is $88,400, pulled upward by the top of the range, which is why the middle is the fairer number to plan against.
Why is the pay range for this job so wide?
The label is broader than the work. From $55,430 at the bottom tenth to $128,890 at the top, the same title covers roles that share little beyond a name.
Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?
A larger wage in a dearer place is not automatically more. Adjusted for local prices, this pay behaves like $62,798 of national purchasing power.
Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?
Three of them are federal and one is not. After income tax, Social Security, Medicare and Arizona's own levy, $63,492 remains.
Can I compare this job across every state?
This occupation is published everywhere — all 51 of them — so comparing states measures real differences rather than gaps in the data.
How does the published median differ from the mean for this occupation?
The median is the midpoint of the distribution; the mean for this occupation in Arizona is $88,400. Wage distributions are right-skewed, so the mean exceeds the median wherever a minority earn substantially more. BLS publishes both because substituting one for the other misstates a typical worker's pay.
What drives the percentile dispersion in this occupation?
Dispersion between the tenth percentile ($55,430) and the ninetieth ($128,890) exceeds the family median dispersion. SOC codes aggregate roles differing in seniority, industry and specialisation, and BLS does not disaggregate below the detailed occupation level, so within-title variance is not separable from the published series.
How does the state price level affect real compensation?
Arizona's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $62,798 in national-average terms. ⚠️ RPPs are an all-items index; housing parities vary far more widely than the headline figure.
What accounts for the gap between gross wage and take-home here?
Take-home of $63,492 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Arizona income tax for a single filer with no adjustments. The state layer is levied in addition to the federal one; only its rate and base differ between states.
Is this occupation's state coverage complete?
State-level estimates are published for all 51 jurisdictions for this occupation, so cross-state comparison is not confounded by suppression. ⚠️ Estimates remain survey-based and carry sampling error; small differences between adjacent states should not be over-read.