On November 5, 2026, the IRS released the 2027 inflation adjustments — tax brackets, standard deduction, and about seventy other figures — in Revenue Procedure 2026-35. If you sell on eBay, Shopify, or Discogs and you're starting to think about year-end tax planning, it's worth being precise about what this actually is, because the timing makes it easy to mix up with the return you're about to file.
First: which return this touches
The 2027 numbers apply to income you earn between January 1 and December 31, 2027 — the return you'll file in early 2028. The return due in April 2027 covers your 2026 income, and it runs on the 2026 brackets that were already set a year ago. Nothing in this release changes what you owe for the year you're currently finishing out. It changes what you'll owe for the year you're about to start.
The 2027 numbers
Both single and married-filing-jointly brackets moved up roughly 3.2% from 2026, in line with the chained-CPI indexing the IRS has used since 2018. The seven rates themselves — 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, 37% — are unchanged; only the income thresholds where each one kicks in moved.
Single filers, where each rate starts (2026 → 2027):
- 10%: $0 → $0
- 12%: $12,400 → $12,800
- 22%: $50,400 → $52,025
- 24%: $105,700 → $109,125
- 32%: $201,775 → $208,325
- 35%: $256,225 → $264,550
- 37%: $640,600 → $661,375
Married filing jointly, where each rate starts (2026 → 2027):
- 10%: $0 → $0
- 12%: $24,800 → $25,600
- 22%: $100,800 → $104,050
- 24%: $211,400 → $218,250
- 32%: $403,550 → $416,650
- 35%: $512,450 → $529,100
- 37%: $768,700 → $793,650
Standard deduction (2026 → 2027):
- Single / married filing separately: $16,100 → $16,600
- Married filing jointly: $32,200 → $33,200
- Head of household: $24,150 → $24,925
Why this isn't "taxes went up"
It's the opposite mechanism, and it's worth understanding if you're pricing out next year. Bracket thresholds are indexed to inflation specifically to stop bracket creep — the effect where cost-of-living increases push the same real income into a higher nominal bracket, so you pay more tax on a raise that didn't actually make you richer. If your reselling profit grows next year by roughly the same inflation rate that pushed these brackets up — your sourcing costs went up, so your prices went up, so your nominal profit went up — the wider brackets mean your marginal rate on that profit lands close to where it would have without any of it happening. The brackets moving isn't the tax code taking more; it's the tax code trying not to take more than it did last year for the same real income.
That's different from the Social Security wage base, which jumped to $192,300 for 2027 and genuinely can increase what a reseller stacking profit on top of a W-2 job owes — that number isn't correcting for inflation on your income, it's raising the ceiling on how much income gets taxed at the full self-employment rate. Two separate 2027 figures moving for two separate reasons.
Where this actually matters for your estimated payments
The safe harbor for quarterly estimated taxes — pay 90% of what you'll owe this year, or 100% (110% over $150,000 prior-year AGI) of what you owed last year, whichever is smaller — still works exactly the same way with these new numbers in play. If you're using the prior-year method for 2027's payments, you're taking a dollar amount off your 2026 return, and that dollar amount doesn't change no matter what the 2027 brackets say. The new brackets only matter if you're using the other method: estimating your actual 2027 liability directly, usually because your profit is growing and the prior-year number would badly undershoot it. Run that estimate on the 2027 thresholds above, not last year's — plugging 2026 numbers into a 2027 estimate overstates what you'll owe, because every threshold moved up.
A worked example
Say a single-filer reseller nets a flat $85,000 on Schedule C two years in a row — 2026 and 2027, no growth, just to isolate what the bracket move alone does. (Ignoring the standard deduction and self-employment tax for a moment, to isolate just the bracket math on that $85,000 of taxable income.)
- Under 2026 brackets: the portion from $50,400 to $85,000 — $34,600 —
- is taxed at 22%, after the lower bands take their share below that.
- Under 2027 brackets: the 22% band now runs from $52,025 to $109,125,
- so the same $85,000 has $32,975 taxed at 22% instead of $34,600 — $1,625
- less income sitting in that bracket, taxed at 10% or 12% instead.
Flat income, slightly lower bracket tax, purely because the thresholds moved and the income didn't. That's bracket-creep protection working as designed — it's a reason not to panic at headlines calling this a tax increase, not a reason to expect a windfall.
What to actually do
- Don't apply these numbers to the return due this coming April. That
- return is for 2026 income and uses 2026 brackets — nothing above changes
- it.
- **If you're using the prior-year safe harbor for 2027's quarterly
- payments, keep doing exactly that.** The dollar figure from your 2026
- return doesn't get recalculated against 2027 brackets.
- **If you're estimating your actual 2027 tax liability instead — because
- your profit is climbing and last year's number won't cover it — use the
- 2027 thresholds above, not 2026's.**
- **Treat a growing nominal profit next year with some skepticism before
- assuming it pushed you into a materially higher bracket.** The bracket
- boundaries moved with roughly the same inflation that (probably) moved
- your sourcing costs and sale prices.
PalmFlow tracks the net Schedule C profit number — sale price minus cost basis, fees, and shipping, across eBay, Shopify, and Discogs — that any of this bracket math actually runs on. It doesn't calculate your tax liability or file anything; that's tax software or a CPA's job once you have a real profit number to hand them. Free plan, 50 active items, no card required.
Disclaimer: this is general information, not tax advice. The figures above come from IRS Revenue Procedure 2026-35; how they apply to your specific filing status, deductions, and other income depends on your full return — confirm your own numbers with a CPA or tax software before relying on them for planning decisions.