Tax Preparers in Rhode Island

A person arriving at a home office with a bag beside a laptop and navy coffee cup.

May 2025 wages · tax year 2026

You keep

$46,783

after federal, FICA and Rhode Island tax

Tax takes

$10,897

18.9% of the whole

Worth, in national money

$46,132

Rhode Island costs more than average

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

$57,680

Kept after tax

$46,783

Worth in national money

$46,132

State rank

16

of 48 states

What this pays, and what it is worth

  • Pay for tax preparers is strong here. Rhode Island's middle earner gets $57,680, putting the state 16 of 48 — about 5.03% ahead of the national figure.
  • Ordinary, locally speaking. Tax preparers ranks 276 among 452 occupations Rhode Island publishes pay for.
  • Prices here sit close to the national average, so the adjustment changes little. From $57,680 the take-home is $46,783, which is worth about $46,132 in comparable money. Tax does most of the work here, not cost of living. The average is lower, $57,010, so pay clusters nearer the top than usual.
  • For tax preparers, Rhode Island sits in the upper band nationally: a median of $57,680, ranking 16 of 48 and running about 5.03% above the national midpoint. Nominal advantage of this size is usually, though not always, large enough to survive the state's own tax and price levels.
  • Position 276 of 452 in Rhode Island places tax preparers in the middle of the state's wage distribution. Because within-state and cross-state rankings measure different things, this figure and the national one above should be read together rather than as a single verdict.
  • Rhode Island's price level is near the national average, so price deflation is close to neutral for tax preparers on its $57,680 median: $46,783 retained after tax becomes $46,132 in national-average terms. Where the price adjustment is small, the tax stack is the dominant determinant of the real outcome. The mean of $57,010 falls below the median, a left skew that is uncommon in wage data.

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Pay band: Tax Preparers

The state median for this job

50thpercentile, roughly
Lowest tenth earn under$52,000
Half earn under$57,680
Top tenth earn over$62,580
This salary$57,680

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

Compare with
+$1,743take-home per year in Texas
Take-home in Rhode Island$46,783
Take-home in Texas$48,526
Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity+$3,805

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

Moving to
$0now · $57,680$53,078
$53,078in Texas, for the same life
To match take-home only$55,511
You could take a cut of−$4,602
Prices in Texas97 vs 101

State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.

Sources and assumptions
  • Half the people doing this work in Rhode Island earn less than $57,680. The published range is $52,000 up to $62,580, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
  • That $46,783 take-home in Rhode Island comes from $57,680. It is the no-frills case: single filer, standard deduction, nothing set aside before tax. Real circumstances almost always reduce the tax. City and school-district taxes are not counted at all. Locally the work ranks 276 of 452.
  • Two cautions on $46,132, the adjusted value of that $57,680 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Rhode Island. No actual address matches that. The wage figures and price figures are also from different years. Each is published on its own timetable. This work sits at 276 of 452 locally.
  • Reported values are medians; for tax preparers in Rhode Island the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $52,000 to $62,580. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
  • Retained pay of $46,783, from $57,680, assumes a single Rhode Island filer with the standard deduction and no elective deferrals. Pre-tax retirement or HSA contributions, dependants and itemized deductions all reduce it further; local income taxes, excluded here, would increase it in the states that levy them. This occupation ranks 276 of 452 locally, and the state ranks 16 of 48 for it.
  • This $46,132 adjusted figure, worked from $57,680, rests on a state-level price parity averaging over within-state dispersion larger than much of the between-state dispersion. Wage and price vintages differ by publication schedule. The result is directionally sound and not address-specific, for work at 276 of 452 in the state. The occupation ranks 276 of 452 locally.

Questions people ask

How much does pay for this job actually vary?

Most of these jobs pay within a close range — $52,000 at the tenth percentile, $62,580 at the ninetieth.

Does a bigger number here mean I am better off?

The number and the value are different things. Rhode Island costs more than the national average, so this take-home stretches like $46,132 rather than its face figure.

Where does the difference between the wage and my paycheck go?

Into four separate taxes, not one. Federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare apply everywhere, and Rhode Island adds its own income tax on top — which is why $46,783 of this wage survives to your account.

Why is this job missing from some states?

Because the survey suppresses a figure when too few employers report it. This occupation has published pay in 48 states — the rest are withheld to protect confidentiality, which is not the same as nobody doing the work there.

What is the dispersion of this occupation's wage distribution?

The tenth-to-ninetieth percentile span ($52,000 to $62,580) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Rhode Island rather than a national figure.

How does the state price level affect real compensation?

Rhode Island's regional price parity sits above the national average, so nominal wages overstate purchasing power. Deflating take-home by the state price level gives $46,132 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 $46,783 reflects federal income tax, OASDI, Medicare and Rhode Island 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.

Why does this occupation lack published estimates in every state?

BLS suppresses estimates failing disclosure or reliability criteria. This occupation has published state-level estimates in 48 of the fifty-one jurisdictions. Suppression reflects sample size and confidentiality rules, and cannot be read as an absence of employment.