Small Business Tax Calculator for California Owners - Two of Them, and Both Are Free
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A small business tax calculator California owners can check line by line
Which one you need depends on the question you arrived with. Neither is a general business tax estimator. Each answers one narrow question exactly, on figures you type, and shows the arithmetic underneath it - every line opens to the formula with your own numbers in it and the Code section or FTB publication behind it. They run on the same 2026 constants and the same engine; they differ in what they take in and what they hand back.
Entity Selection Wizard
Should I be an LLC, an S corp, or neither - and at what profit does that flip?
Type one number, what you expect to clear this year after expenses, and it prices all three structures against each other for 2026: self-employment or payroll tax, California's $800 minimum and its 1.5% or 8.84% franchise rate, the LLC gross receipts fee, the qualified business income deduction California does not give you, and what we would charge to prepare the returns each structure requires. Then it plots the break-even, so you can see how far past it, or short of it, you are.
What it hands back
- A three-column comparison with one all-in annual figure for each structure
- Every line openable - the formula with your own numbers in it, and the section of the Code or the FTB publication behind it
- The profit at which the S corp election starts paying for itself, computed rather than quoted
- A reasonable-salary dial showing what each dollar of payroll saving costs you in QBI deduction, and where the defensible band sits
- A one-page summary you can print, save as PDF, or have emailed
If you were sent here looking for an entity selection calculator, this is the one.
Deduction Finder
What can I actually deduct, what is it worth in tax, and what will I have to produce if I am asked?
Six answers decide which lines apply to you. After that, every figure comes from a number you already have on a bank statement, a bill or an odometer. Leave a field blank and the line simply does not appear - the page will not estimate on your behalf. Four of the six computed lines are run both ways, because the method you pick is usually worth more than the deduction itself.
What it hands back
- Deductions identified and the tax each one saves, kept as two separate figures rather than one flattering total
- Home office and vehicle run both ways - simplified against actual, standard rate against running cost
- Federal and California side by side, including the $25,000 California section 179 cap and the bonus depreciation California allows none of
- A Solo 401(k) against a SEP at your own plan compensation, which is usually the largest number on the page
- The rest of the list carrying no figures at all, and exactly what a records request would ask for on each one
Nothing on it is gated, and no email is required to see any figure on the page.
Each page carries a link to the other and your figures travel with it, so you can settle the structure first and then price the deductions that structure actually opens.
What California does differently, and what it costs you
Almost every tax calculator on the internet computes a federal answer and stops. In California that answer is wrong in four specific places, and in one of them it is wrong by tens of thousands of dollars. Both calculators here carry all four, in a column of their own, never folded into a single figure.
No deduction for qualified business income
- What it is
- Section 199A takes up to 20% of business income off the federal return. California does not conform, and because the California return starts from federal adjusted gross income the deduction never enters the California computation at all.
- What it costs
- Roughly a third of the federal benefit, on every California return, every year, under every structure. It is not a rounding difference and it does not belong in a footnote.
Section 179 capped at $25,000, and no bonus depreciation
- What it is
- Federally you can expense up to $2,560,000 of equipment and 100% bonus depreciation takes whatever section 179 does not. California caps section 179 at $25,000, phases it out from $200,000 of additions, and allows no bonus depreciation at all.
- What it costs
- In a year with real equipment purchases the two returns diverge by tens of thousands - and you carry a separate California depreciation schedule for as long as you own the asset.
$800 a year minimum, from year one
- What it is
- Every LLC and every corporation doing business in California owes at least $800 a year. The first-year exemption expired on December 31, 2023 and was not renewed. SB 122 cuts the first-year amount to $400 for an LLC, LP or LLP whose first taxable year begins in 2027 through 2029.
- What it costs
- $800 in the first year, on a business that may not have earned anything yet. Above the floor an S corp pays 1.5% of net income and a C corp pays 8.84%.
An LLC fee charged on receipts, not on profit
- What it is
- On top of the $800, a California LLC pays a fee stepped on gross receipts - $900 at $250,000, rising to $11,790. It is prepaid on Form 3536 by June 15.
- What it costs
- Underpaying the June prepayment carries a 10% penalty. It is charged on receipts, so it is owed in a loss year too, and it is the most expensive avoidable mistake a California LLC makes.
An LLC that elects S corp treatment pays the 1.5% instead and owes no receipts fee at all. Which of the two costs less flips with your profit and your receipts, separately - which is the whole reason the first calculator exists.
The question underneath both of them
How much business tax will I pay?
There is no single rate, and any page that gives you one is selling something. A business owner's bill is four separate computations stacked on each other, and they are worked in this order.
One - Self-employment or payroll tax, on the business profit.
A sole proprietor pays 15.3% on 92.35% of net profit: 12.4% for Social Security up to the wage base, 2.9% for Medicare with no ceiling at all, and another 0.9% above the threshold for your filing status. An S corp pays the same rates, but only on the salary. That difference is the entire case for the election, before anything is subtracted from it. The first calculator computes this line for all three structures.
Two - Federal income tax, on what is left after deductions.
Ordinary progressive brackets, applied to business profit less your deductions less the qualified business income deduction. This is the line most people mean when they say taxes, and it is the one that moves least when you change your structure - income tax on the profit is roughly the same either way. The second calculator sizes the deductions that feed it.
Three - California income tax, on a different number entirely.
California starts from the federal figure and then takes things back: most of your section 179, all of your bonus depreciation, your health savings account contribution. The qualified business income deduction never reaches California at all, because the California return starts from federal adjusted gross income and section 199A is taken after it. Your California taxable income is therefore higher than your federal, sometimes by a great deal. Both pages show California in a column of its own and never fold it into a single tax-saved figure.
Four - California's entity taxes, which are not income tax at all.
The $800 minimum, the 1.5% or 8.84% franchise rate, and the LLC gross receipts fee. These are owed by the entity in a loss year as readily as a profitable one, and they are the lines that decide whether a structure is worth having in the first place. The first calculator prices all of them.
Six of the 2026 figures behind those four moved this year. They are listed in full on the entity page and on the deduction page. The federal and California changes for 2026 are summarized on the tax insights page.
Add the four and you have the year. Neither page will do that for you, and that is not caution - a total needs your itemized deductions, your other income, your credits, any other business, and what a spouse earns. What these two do is size the parts you can actually change.
Printed at full size, not in a footnote
What these calculators do not do
Each page carries its own limits section. These six apply to both, and they are the reason a fifteen-minute conversation is still worth having after you have run them.
Six things neither page will do
- Produce your tax bill. Both compare positions. Neither is a return, and the two are different documents.
- Model more than one state. If you have receipts, payroll or property outside California, the state layer is incomplete and probably understated.
- Defend a reasonable salary. The dial on the entity page shows you the tradeoff. What survives an examination is a documented judgment about what your work would cost to hire, and no slider position produces one.
- Cost out converting an entity you already have. Built-in gains, basis, accumulated adjustments, payroll set-up and sometimes a short tax year are all real, and none of them are modeled.
- Assume your records will carry it. Every figure is what the arithmetic allows. What you keep decides what survives, which is why half the deduction page is about records rather than amounts.
- Put a number on what you are missing. You will find averages published everywhere; they are marketing rather than data. Both pages compute from figures you type, and neither will invent one on your behalf.
Tax year 2026. Both calculators verified August 15, 2026. Sources: IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32, Rev. Proc. 2025-19, Notice 2025-67, FTB Pub. 1001, FTB Pub. 3556. California brackets and the California standard deduction are FTB's 2025 published schedule, which FTB directs taxpayers to use for 2026 estimates until it releases the 2026 indexed amounts in December. Informational only, and not tax advice. Using either page does not create a client relationship. TrueArc Tax and Financial Services is a CTEC-registered tax preparation practice with an active PTIN.
Questions about these calculators
Are these calculators free, and do you keep what I enter?
Free, and nothing is kept. The arithmetic runs in your browser, on your own device, and nothing you type leaves it unless you ask for the summary by email - which is optional, and which nobody has to do to see any figure on either the entity wizard or the deduction finder. No account, no signup, no gate.
How accurate are they?
Every constant on both pages comes from one file, checked against the source documents and dated on the page. Every computed line opens to show the formula with your own figures in it and the authority behind it - a section of the Internal Revenue Code, a Revenue Procedure, or an FTB publication. What no calculator can promise is that your situation is the one being modeled, so both pages state their assumptions in full and both list what they leave out.
Which one should I use first?
If you are self-employed and have not settled your structure, the first one - because the structure decides which deductions are even available to you. An accountable plan, the home office, and self-employed health insurance all behave completely differently on a Schedule C and on an 1120-S. If your structure is already settled, start with the second.
Do I need to be in California for these to be useful?
The federal half applies anywhere. The California half - no conformity to the qualified business income deduction, a $25,000 section 179 cap, no bonus depreciation, the $800 minimum and the gross receipts fee - is specific to California, and it is a large enough share of the answer that an owner elsewhere would be reading numbers that do not apply to them. These were built for California owners on purpose.
What do I need in front of me before I start?
For the first, one number: what you expect to clear this year after business expenses. Everything else has a sensible default you can change. For the second, a little more - the square footage of the space you work in, business miles split across the two halves of 2026, what you spent on equipment, and what you paid for health cover. Anything you leave blank simply does not produce a line.
What happens if I book the fifteen minutes?
We look at what you computed, tell you which of it your records would actually carry, and tell you where the arithmetic on the page stops being the whole answer for your situation. If it turns out you are already doing this right, you will hear that. There is no follow-up sequence either way. Book the fifteen minutes, or send us your numbers instead.
Both pages hand you a figure. Neither tells you which parts are actually yours.
Fifteen minutes, free, and specific to whatever you computed. Not a sales call - you will get an honest read on whether your structure still fits, which of those deductions your records would actually carry, and what working together would cost as one flat number. If the answer is that you do not need us yet, you will hear that instead.
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