The tax code thing that broke my brain at 2am

Was going through my W-2 the other night for my side gig and noticed my effective tax rate was way lower than I thought. Like, I always assumed the rich pay less because of loopholes, but digging into the brackets on the IRS site showed that a married couple making $94k barely pays half the rate I thought they would. Found it on the tax foundation page after a rabbit hole. Is that actually how most people misunderstand progressivity, or am I just late to this? Anyone else have a stat that flipped their whole view on something political?

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clark.lily15d ago

The first time I actually looked at the marginal brackets instead of just the top rate, I felt stupid lol. I kept hearing people say the rich pay nothing, so I assumed a $200k salary meant like 10% effective somehow. Turns out a married couple at $94k is in the 22% bracket but their effective rate is more like 13.5% after the standard deduction and lower tiers. That really changed how I read any tax debate now, I actually check the math before nodding along.