If you ever wanted proof that a population that doesn't understand math allows the billionaires to take advantage of them here it is. This is why education systems are under attack, because if you understood how taxes work you'd more likely support higher tax rates for the rich.

This is the problem. My partner doesn’t want to work OT because he thinks it will cost him more in taxes. I explain why that’s not exactly true, but I can tell he’s not interested. Financial Literacy in the US is abysmal.

This is absolutely an educational failing. We barely cover taxes in school. At best it's said once in a class, gets covered in a minor question on a test and if we get it wrong, no one notices. "We" probably still got a B on the test without any CLUE how taxes work.

Yet here we are, dismantling any nationwide effort to make education better.

A LOT of people think 99,999 tax is 27,999 and 100,001 is 29,000, even on the democrat side. If those charts are accurate, it's probably damn close to 50% of US citizens.

To be clear for those unaware, you pay the lower bracket rates for the amounts earned in that bracket and the higher bracket rates for the amounts earned above that bracket.

https://www.irs.gov/filing/federal-income-tax-rates-and-brackets

Where i live we have a system where if you take sick days, they are paid 80%. 20% reduction applies only to the days you were sick. Once I got sick at the end of a month and took the last 3 days of the month and first 2 days of the next one off and my mother in law freaked out I'm about to loose 20% of 2 month's salaries. She was and is still convinced that 20% deduction applies to a whole month worth of salary even if you take one day off that month. She almost never takes sick days and she works in a hospital... She self medicates and works with patients even when she has a transmittable diseases. Best of luck to those who have serious health problems and then get a fucking flu on top of everything from hospital staff. She is 60+ and reading the law to her doesn't change her mind. A couple years ago she had more serious health problems and took a week off for the first time in decades, even after getting a paycheck reduced only by 5% and not 20% her perception of this issue didn't change. She misunderstood that system once 40 years ago and she is going to take that misunderstanding to ger grave. Real world has no influence on her beliefs.

This belief is held by many older folks due to propoganda, and it is passed down to their children when their parents teach them about taxes. Since almost all younger folks use automated tax services, if they aren't doing the math themselves, the fact that this isn't true isn't going to be discovered. I was taught the incorrect way when I was a kid, but noticed that it was wrong the first time I had to do my own taxes. But when I told my parents the way it actually worked, they didn't believe me until I showed them the .gov site that breaks it down. I grew up in a small, blue collar town, and every single person I talked to about taxes parroted the same incorrect system.

It boggles my mind how many people who have had to pay taxes for decades even, don't understand how tax brackets work.

The only time you'll get screwed on making more is if you were getting some sort of socialized assistance and you make a dollar over the cut off for aid.

I used to be a supervisor at a psych hospital and had to regularly explain this to staff who were refusing overtime. They wanted to do it, sometimes desperately so because they needed the money, but they were utterly convinced that once they crossed 40 or 45k or whatever they would be taxed higher and make it all pointless. I felt like some just didn’t want to do ot, which was fine, but some legit keep meticulous records of their earnings to ensure they wouldn’t go over the line. I swore to them it didn’t work this way but they never believed me

try telling this to people who think government agencies pay taxes

These people are allowed to vote, and that is why we are all fucked.

I'm more concerned about the third of dems who don't understand this.

this was pushed in the 80's/90's on conservative talk radio (iirc). strangely, it gets an ideological push from the phenomenon of income reduction resulting from lost welfare benefits as income increases. the brain correlates things irrationally.

How dumb do you have to be? By the time you make that much money you should, in theory, know the answer definitively or have a guy.

No source?

And they'll also refuse to believe you when you try to explain it to them

And this why democracy won't work. How can people votw in their best interests when they don't know how basic taxes work

I'm just in awe about those 28% and 33% tax brackets. I'm in the 49,5% bracket here in The Netherlands. That being said, I'm fortunate to be in it.

Hmmm, I better send a suggestion letter to the ATO (Australian Taxation Office) to put the tax bracket breakdown directly into your return with the amounts populated.

Hey, they give us a breakdown graph of where our tax is going, this seems like it's within the realm of possibility.

I think sadly there are also many people here who have no idea how tax brackets work...

For someone outside the American tax system, can anyone put the difference in approximate numbers?