this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
90 points (68.3% liked)
Asklemmy
43818 readers
1074 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Because your yearly income dictates your tax bracket.
This isn't how tax brackets work. Say we have 5%, 10%, and 15% in a system similar to the US with completely made up numbers. Say you make $99k, your first $33k will be taxed at 5% ($1650), your second $33k at 10%($3300), and your last $33k taxed at 15%($4950) totalling $9900. 9900/99000= a 10% effective tax rate. The real system is more complicated, but this is what it boils down to.
Nothing that I wrote conflicts with anything you said.
Being in Tax Bracket C doesn't in any way imply you arent in Tax Bracket A.
The point is, Tax Brackets, and Taxes in general, are based on yearly income, so thats what people largely measure by once you are above a certain pay grade.
You get taxed by the year, so many people quote their income by the year, because its a quick and simple indicator of wealth/status.
You wrote "it determines your tax bracket" inferring you'd be in a single bracket and this is an extremely common misconception with how our tax system works. Furthermore, your income is only part of the equation since your tax rate is also affected by deductions, exemptions, and credits making two people making the exact same income can be taxed at different rates.
For future reference. Anytime people are talking about "their tax bracket" in a progressive tax system, they are talking about the top level bracket.
It's typically redundant to, mid conversation, list all the tax brackets that exist under the one you're talking about.
The only people I've ever heard talking about "their tax bracket" are the types who refuse to take an extra hours at work because "it'll put me in a higher tax bracket and I'll actually earn less money than if I hadn't worked it at all" even though that's mathematically impossible.
Someone earning $44,726 will put them a whole dollar into the 22% tax bracket meaning they pay $0.22 more in taxes than if they'd stayed within the 12% bracket of $11,001-$44,725. Claiming "I'm in the 22% bracket" is completely meaningless, as evidenced with the above example, and ignores the fact that this person is much more likely to have an effective tax rate of around 12% or less. If you're only paying 12% of your income in taxes, why in the world would you say you're "in the 22% bracket?"
Naw dude... I know how tax brackets work.
Most folks who know how taxes work refer to their "tax bracket" inclusively with respect to both the point they are at as well as inclusive with all below
Because its impossible to be at the third tax bracket without logically also being in the first and second implicitly, it is redundant to include that.
Sorry mate but you are just coming across as pedantic here, or uninformed. Its quite normal to, colloquially, refer to the topmost bracket you are encroached into as "your tax bracket" singular, with everyone in the room understanding that is inclusive with all those below it.
I wont deny that there are a lot of people that think that going up a tax bracket means all their income is taxed at the new rate, which is always hilarious that people still think that in 2023.
But no, I assure you, I know how progressive tax brackets work lol.
In future we all expect you to list the average tax rate you are in and which two tax brackets that it lies between by calculating all the taxes paid and dividing by your gross wages then looking up the tax code to verify it has not changed. Please provide sources every time on your tax code.
You're just repeating the same thing you said in the last comment and ignoring everything I wrote. Nowhere did I say that you need to list every bracket. I said people don't talk about "their tax bracket" because that isn't a thing and that isn't their tax bracket. It's just a percentage that some potentially miniscule amount of tax that may apply to a further potentially tiny fraction of income and in no way represents how much they're paying in taxes.
It does actually, because if you are any amount into tax bracket n, you are already implicitly paying the maximum taxes of brackets 1 to n-1
For example in Canada, federal tax brackets are:
If I say I am in the third tax bracket, that already implicitly informs you of how much taxes I am paying for the first and second brackets, because by being in the third bracket I already am paying the maximum amount for brackets one and two. These are now fixed values implicitly.
If I am in the third tax bracket, you know I am paying at minimum $8003.85 + $10938.39 (the maximums of bracket 1 and 2 combined), and at most another $20,371 above that.
No more, no less, the "third tax bracket" is paying between $18,942.24 and $39,313.24 per year.
So yes, it is a specific and fixed "range" of taxes.
I can't tell if you're being serious - and so the world's biggest pedant, or if you're just the kind of person who can never admit they were wrong, even about something inconsequential, and aren't willing to admit you misread the top comment lol
I think you might be the only one that inferred that.