Looking solely at the tax bracket is a little deceptive. In reality, with a $92k income, you'll pay:

- $17196.25 Federal tax (https://www.irs.com/articles/2016-federal-tax-rates-personal... with standard deduction)

- $5518.58 California state tax (https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/2017-California-Tax-Rates-and-E... Schedule X, with standard deduction applied)

- $7038 for OASDI

So you actually pay 19% federal, 6% state and 7.65% OASDI, for a total of 32.65%.

It's still bad but not 45%.

Is that 45% marginal? Because the post you reply to talks about 40% of their income i.e. not the marginal rate.

I sometimes wonder if it would substantially change the tax conversation if everyone understood what a marginal tax rate was.

It is both, the Federal rate of 28% starts at 91k, but 25% starts at 31k. Since California starts their 9% tax at 51k I can change my comment to be that those making 51k get taxed at 41%. Even with a "progressive" tax system you are still paying more taxes then people assume.

I bring this whole thing up not because I don't understand marginal tax rates, but because the issue isn't "tax brackets" or marginal tax rates, but its deductions and other loopholes that allow people to pay far less then that in "effective tax rates". Lets not even get into the spending side of things and how much waste there is in the system that effectively funnels those funds to a federal contractors.

People have extremely naive perceptions of how taxes are used. It shocks me. The "throw tax money at it" attitude towards problems, especially in cities where people are reasonably wealthy, is very lazy.

This California tax predictor suggests a single person earning 51K will pay 40.65% marginal income tax rate, 22.5% effective income tax and only 29% effective including sales, fuel and property tax.

https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#8x5pQ...

it really depends on the tax steps, it's quite likely they'd pay less taxes in the US cause the higher rates kick in later (and hit 40% in their host country long before reaching $91k).

E.g. in Germany you would already reach 47.5% (42% income tax + 5.5% solidarity surcharge) as a single person at €52k.

You can't compare absolute incomes. $52K in Germany is probably equivalent to $100K in the US, if you take into account that you don't have to pay $250K/child in college tuition, $25K/year in health care premiums, etc. You can think of these as taxes, because that's how you pay for these in Germany.

Also, the "US has low taxes" mantra is a bit of a myth.

Please add:

- State taxes (usually 6-8%) on top of federal taxes.

- Real estate taxes - in a major metropolitan area in NE US, you pay $12K/year for an average house in a decent (but not top) neighborhood.

- Excise taxes - for every car/boat you own.

- Taxes on every almost every service - cable/Internet, land/cell phone (FCC), airline tickets (FAA), etc.

We also get very low return on our money, paying twice as much for everything (education and healthcare in particular) and getting lower quality in return, compared to Europe.

This is exactly my point. Paying "high" taxes if you're getting something good for your money can be worth doing.

Call me a pacifist, but I don't like paying taxes for military equipment that the military leaders themselves have said is not useful for them. But Congress keeps doing it because Boeing and Lockheed keep paying them to do it. I would MUCH rather a good percent of my "defense contribution" go toward lowering education costs for ALL Americans.

Regarding all the taxes you mention, those really are regressive taxes. They make up a greater percentage of poor people's incomes than they do rich people's. Back when gas in the US was over $4/gal, the poor people suffered immensely. The rich people already were able to choose Tahoes with 13mpg and not care, so the extra gasoline bill was not something that affected them. But poor people suddenly had to choose whether they drove to work (to earn minimum wage), or whether they replaced a shoe with a hole in it.

I firmly believe that the reason we get less quality in return for our taxes is because of the absolute corporate control over the majority of Congress. And since elections are driven almost entirely by money, to win a seat you have to accept corporate money and then return the favor (else you're out next election).