CalcWyse Editorial Standards & Corrections

CalcWyse publishes calculators and guides about money decisions, so accuracy and independence come before everything else on the site. These are the rules every page follows.

Sourcing

Primary sources first. Tax, benefit and limit figures come from the agency that sets them: the IRS, the Social Security Administration, the FHFA, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Reserve and state revenue departments.
Market data is dated. Mortgage rates, savings yields and prices change weekly. When a page cites one, it names the source and the date, for example “Freddie Mac PMMS, week of September 24, 2026”.
Estimates are labeled. When a number is modeled rather than published (a projected return, a cost-of-living estimate), the page says so and states the assumption.

How pages are produced and checked

Calculator formulas are written and tested against official examples before they go live.
Worked examples on guide pages are generated from the same calculation engine as the calculators, so the text and the tool always match.
Every guide is reviewed for accuracy and clarity before publication and at least once per tax year.
Pages show the date they were last updated. A page is re-dated only when its content or figures actually change.

We use software tools, including AI writing assistants, to help draft and edit some text. Every figure is checked against the calculation engine or a primary source, and a person reviews each page before it is published.

Independence and how CalcWyse makes money

CalcWyse is free to use and is supported by display advertising. The site may also include affiliate links, which are always disclosed on the page (see our Affiliate Disclosure).

Advertisers and affiliate partners have no input into calculator logic, results, rankings or conclusions.
We do not accept payment for placement in a guide or for a favorable result.
Ads are placed so they never cover or interrupt calculator inputs and results.

Updates

Tax-year figures are updated when the IRS and SSA publish them (usually October–November for the following year). Rate-sensitive guides are reviewed monthly. Methodology changes are described on the Methodology page.

Corrections

If you find an error, email calcwyse@gmail.com with the page URL and what looks wrong. We aim to review reports within five business days. When a correction changes a number a reader could have relied on, we fix the page, update its date and list the change below.

Date	Page	Correction
2026-10-03	Compound Interest Calculator	The headline future value was wrong when monthly deposits were combined with daily, quarterly or yearly compounding; it now matches the year-by-year table.
2026-10-03	Capital Gains Tax and Dividend calculators	Tax is now worked out on taxable income (after the standard deduction) and stacked across the 0%, 15% and 20% thresholds, with the 3.8% net investment income tax applied only to the amount above the threshold. Earlier versions applied one rate to the whole gain.
2026-10-03	Self-Employment Tax and Side Hustle Tax calculators	Wages from a job now count toward the $184,500 Social Security limit, and the Additional Medicare threshold is $250,000 for joint filers. Second-quarter due date corrected to June 15.
2026-10-03	Debt Payoff Calculator	Payments freed up when a debt is paid off now roll into the next debt, as the snowball and avalanche methods require.
2026-10-03	Rent vs Buy Calculator	The cost of buying now includes the down payment, and the tax-rate field is actually used.
2026-10-03	Retirement, HSA and FIRE calculators	Contributions are capped at the 2026 limits; the FIRE timeline now uses returns after inflation (the default result moved from about 20 to 25 years).
2026-10-03	Social Security Calculator	Cost-of-living increases now apply to every claiming age, and break-even ages are shown to the month.
2026-10-03	Inflation Calculator	CPI table replaced with the BLS annual averages for every year from 1980 to 2025 (2024: 313.689; 2025: 321.943); 2026 uses the January–August average.
2026-10-03	Student Loan Payoff Calculator	SAVE removed (the plan closed on September 30, 2026); the Repayment Assistance Plan added; default rate set to 6.52%; forgiven balances are treated as taxable from 2026 except under PSLF.
2026-10-03	Closing Cost, Auto Loan, Medicare and Unit Converter tools	VA funding fee updated to current tiers; auto loan total cost now includes interest; Medicare Advantage no longer adds a separate Part D premium; unit factors replaced with exact definitions.
2026-10-05	Best high-yield savings account guides	Merged two overlapping guides into one. Replaced per-bank rates dated May 2026 (for example Varo 5.00%, SoFi 4.50%, Marcus 4.25%) with a dated October 2, 2026 table built from two published roundups, with each rate’s conditions. Marcus now pays about 3.4%–3.5%, and the best no-conditions rate is about 4.27%. The old address redirects to the merged guide.
2026-10-05	Mortgage and savings rate figures	Replaced out-of-date rate statements with a single monthly-updated rate table (Freddie Mac 30-year average 7.28% for the week of October 1, 2026; top high-yield savings about 4.25% APY; FDIC national average 0.37%). Mortgage and savings calculator default rates now follow that table, and payments quoted next to the current rate are calculated from it. Rewrote the $10,000 HYSA interest guide, which still quoted early-2025 bank rates.
2026-10-18	2027 Social Security COLA guides	Replaced estimates (3.5%–3.8%) with the official 3.6% COLA announced by SSA on October 14, 2026, plus the 2027 taxable maximum ($192,300), earnings-test limits, work-credit amount, SSI rates and the $2,095 to $2,170 average retired-worker benefit. Removed a table row that applied the COLA to the maximum benefit (the maximum is set by wage indexing). The $209.50 Part B premium remains a Trustees projection; IRS 2027 limits are not published yet.
2026-10-04	Salary-after-taxes guides for Arizona, California and Colorado	Replaced 2025 federal figures that had been left in 45 guides. Take-home figures are now calculated from the same 2026 tax engine as the Take-Home Pay Calculator. Arizona, Colorado and California state tax are labelled estimates (California uses the 2025 schedules until the 2026 ones are published and includes 1.3% State Disability Insurance).
2026-10-03	Mortgage, Inflation and Tax Bracket calculators	Fixed a loading error that stopped these three calculators from producing results in some browsers.
2026-10-03	Crypto Profit and Net Worth calculators	Fixed script errors that prevented results from updating (Crypto Profit) and adding new items (Net Worth).
2026-10-03	Take-Home Pay and Paycheck calculators	Illinois now applies the 2026 personal exemption of $2,925; Massachusetts now applies the personal exemption and the $2,000 deduction for Social Security and Medicare contributions.
2026-09-28	18 loan, mortgage, savings and debt guides	Recomputed figures that did not match the pages’ own assumptions, including the $420,000 rent-vs-buy payment ($2,190 principal and interest, not $2,743), credit card payoff timelines and minimum-payment costs, the college savings monthly targets, the 5%-vs-20%-down cost gap ($107,391) and the new-vs-used car comparison. Minimum payments are now modeled explicitly as interest plus 1% of the balance.
2026-09-28	98 guides and 16 calculator pages	Replaced 2025 figures that were presented as 2026 values (401(k) $24,500, IRA $7,500, HSA $4,400/$8,750, standard deduction $16,100, Social Security wage base $184,500, Medicare Part B $202.90, IRMAA and Roth IRA income limits) and recomputed every example that depended on them with the 2026 engine. Removed state income-tax figures we could not verify for 2026.
2026-09-28	Paycheck Calculator	State income tax now uses the same tables as the Take-Home Pay Calculator, with verified 2026 rules for Georgia, Michigan, New York, North Carolina and Virginia. It previously applied each state’s top rate to all wages, which overstated state tax in graduated-rate states.
2026-09-28	Texas, Georgia and Michigan salary after-tax guides	Rebuilt all figures from the 2026 calculation engine. Earlier versions of some pages stated take-home pay that differed from the calculator by up to several hundred dollars.
2026-09-28	Take-Home Pay Calculator	Georgia, Michigan and New York state tax now use verified 2026 rates and deductions (Georgia 4.99% after a $15,000 standard deduction; Michigan 4.25% after a $5,900 exemption; New York 2026 schedule after an $8,000 standard deduction for single filers).
2026-09-28	Roth Conversion Calculator	The “don’t convert” comparison now includes the cash that would otherwise pay the conversion tax, invested in a taxable account. Earlier results overstated the Roth advantage when the tax was paid from outside funds.
2026-09-28	529 College Savings Calculator	School cost presets updated to 2025-26 College Board budgets; each of the four college years is now priced at its own inflated cost instead of the first-year price.
2026-09-28	Required Minimum Distribution guidance	Corrected the 2026 qualified charitable distribution limit to $111,000 and added the age-75 start for people born in 1960 or later.
2026-09-28	Roth conversion guidance	Updated 2026 Roth IRA income phase-out ranges to $153,000–$168,000 (single) and $242,000–$252,000 (joint).