What people misunderstand about the tax brackets is that your entire income doesn’t get moved to a higher bracket. It’s only the income in excess of it.
So for example, let’s say you had $50,000 of taxable income in 2024 as a single filer, you’d pay 10% on that first $11,600 and 12% on the chunk of income between $11,601 and $47,150. Then you’d pay 22% on the remaining $2,850 that falls into the next tax bracket. The total bill would be about $6,053 — about 12% of your taxable income — even though your highest bracket is 22%. And this example doesn’t take into account the standard deduction.
Bottom line, this won’t save people as much as they think it will. Usually the person in the example simply complains “I’m paying 22%” because it always feels like the paycheck isn’t enough.
What people misunderstand about the tax brackets is that your entire income doesn’t get moved to a higher bracket. It’s only the income in excess of it.
So for example, let’s say you had $50,000 of taxable income in 2024 as a single filer, you’d pay 10% on that first $11,600 and 12% on the chunk of income between $11,601 and $47,150. Then you’d pay 22% on the remaining $2,850 that falls into the next tax bracket. The total bill would be about $6,053 — about 12% of your taxable income — even though your highest bracket is 22%. And this example doesn’t take into account the standard deduction.
Bottom line, this won’t save people as much as they think it will. Usually the person in the example simply complains “I’m paying 22%” because it always feels like the paycheck isn’t enough.