Mississippi’s individual income tax schedule steps down again on January 1, 2027. For tax year 2027 the state is scheduled to tax taxable income above $10,000 at 3.75 percent, one quarter of a percentage point below the 4 percent set for 2026. The first $10,000 of taxable income is taxed at zero in every year on the schedule.
The Department of Revenue’s three-year rate table
The Mississippi Department of Revenue publishes the schedule on its individual income tax rates page, and it runs in three rows. Tax year 2025 carries a rate of 4.4 percent on taxable income in excess of $10,000. Tax year 2026 carries 4 percent on the same slice. Tax year 2027 carries 3.75 percent.
The department’s wording for the 2025 row is plain: “0% on the first $10,000 of taxable income. 4.4% on the remaining taxable income in excess of $10,000.” The 2026 and 2027 rows apply the same structure with the lower rates. Nothing on the page ties the rate to a filing status or an income band beyond the $10,000 line, which makes it a flat marginal rate and not a sliding scale.
The page lists only 2025 through 2027. The department does not use it to show anything after 2027, so the later steps come from a different official record.
House Bill 1 puts the 2027 step in statute and keeps going
The department’s 2025 legislation summary identifies the law behind the schedule as House Bill 1. Its text for the individual income tax reads: “For calendar year 2027, a rate of 3.75%; For calendar year 2028, a rate of 3.5%; For calendar year 2029, a rate of 3.25%; and For calendar year 2030 and all years thereafter, except as otherwise provided below, a rate of 3%.”
That makes 2027 the first of four consecutive quarter-point reductions on the way to 3 percent in 2030. The same page describes a further mechanism that begins in 2031: if the Working Cash-Stabilization Reserve Fund is fully funded, additional reductions of between 0.2 percent and 0.3 percent can follow, depending on revenue surplus thresholds. The 3 percent figure is therefore a floor only until those triggers apply, and the department’s summary does not say whether they will ever be met.
The legislation page does not list the 2025 or 2026 rates, which is why the rate table and the bill summary have to be read together to see the full run from 4.4 percent down to 3 percent.
What a quarter-point cut amounts to in dollars
The department does not publish a savings figure for the 2027 change, so the following is arithmetic from its own rates and not a department estimate. Every $1,000 of taxable income above the $10,000 line costs $40 at the 2026 rate of 4 percent and $37.50 at the 2027 rate of 3.75 percent, a difference of $2.50.
A filer with $60,000 of taxable income has $50,000 above the zero bracket. At 4 percent that produces $2,000 of tax for 2026. At 3.75 percent the same $50,000 produces $1,875 for 2027, which is $125 less before any credits. A filer at $30,000 of taxable income has $20,000 above the line, so the gap is $50.
The calculation uses taxable income, meaning income after whatever deductions and exemptions a return allows, and the same income in two different years. It does not forecast wages or any other change between 2026 and 2027.
The $10,000 exemption and how joint filers count it
The department’s individual income tax FAQ describes the zero bracket as an exemption: the first $10,000 of taxable income is exempt, and the remainder is taxed at the rate for the year. For married couples filing jointly, the FAQ says the first $10,000 of each taxpayer’s taxable income is exempt, so each spouse’s own income is measured against its own $10,000 line.
The FAQ itself still quotes the 4.4 percent rate that applies to the 2025 return, which is a reminder that the page a filer lands on depends on the year being filed. The rate table is the controlling record for which percentage applies to which tax year.
Which rate applies to a return filed this month
The same FAQ gives the deadline for the 2025 return as April 15, 2026, with an extension available until October 15, 2026. A filer who took that extension is therefore working at the 4.4 percent rate for tax year 2025, eleven days from today’s date of October 4, and the 3.75 percent rate does not reach a return until tax year 2027.
Returns and amendments are filed through the department’s Taxpayer Access Point, which the individual income tax page describes as the place to “file returns and/or amend returns online” and make electronic payments for returns, estimates and assessments. The department’s FAQ states that it encourages “everyone who is able to file to file electronically.” Questions about a specific return go to the department directly through its individual income tax contact page, which lists the Clinton, Mississippi office at 500 Clinton Center Drive.
The record that anchors the 2027 figure is the department’s own rate table: a 3.75 percent rate on taxable income above $10,000 for tax year 2027, preceded by 4 percent for 2026 and 4.4 percent for 2025, with the first $10,000 taxed at zero in all three.
Federal refund paperwork sits outside Mississippi’s rate table
The Mississippi schedule governs the state return, and the extended deadline for 2025 state returns falls on October 15, 2026. A federal refund that arrived late, was reduced or never came is a separate matter handled with the IRS, not with the Mississippi Department of Revenue.
The IRS Refund Recovery Kit includes a notice decoder, the refund-trace steps for Form 3911 and a refund status tracker spreadsheet for keeping track of a federal refund that has not shown up.
Open The IRS Refund Recovery Kit →
This piece was drafted with AI assistance; the rates, exemption wording and deadlines were checked against the Mississippi Department of Revenue’s rate, legislation and FAQ pages, and the dollar comparisons are the writer’s own arithmetic from those rates.
