I feel that “outgroup dumb” is shitposting but it’s from a real poll.
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/5057-understanding-how-marginal-taxes-work-its-all-part
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.
Yeah, the Welfare Cliff is the only place where this happens and it’s unconscionable.
It is kind of by design to keep people from trying to get ahead at all
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.
Run, if it’s not too late.
“you can’t make less money by making more money”
Unless you’re poor enough to be on welfare. The Welfare Cliff is awful.
Your partner is a moron who doesn’t understand relatively simple math.
There’s not enough information provided to reach this conclusion.
There is very much enough information given to reach that conclusion.
No, there is not. There are many tax credits one is no longer eligible for after a certain threshold. There are various programs one is no longer eligible for after a certain threshold.
Most of the likely credits tend to phase out gracefully. So it’s true that we can’t be certain, based on my experience of when people are afraid of making too much money, it’s almost always because they think a higher tax bracket applies flatly across their income not due to nuanced understanding of tax credit and welfare benefits.
This is true for many people I’ve talked to, but he does understand, on a basic level, how the brackets work. When it comes to the calculation parts, I think he gets frustrated with all the rules.
But it’s okay! I’m good at stuff like that and he can build pretty much anything. We all have our strengths. :)
Nah. He’s not an idiot. But he is impatient. He doesn’t handle paperwork or anything involving patience well. (ADHD)
I also think taxes in the US are intentionally over complicated and confusing. I don’t struggle with things like that but I can empathize with people who do.
Oddly enough it kinda does. OT can make you pay out more taxes on that one check since withholdings are calculated by check. Basically the government/payroll system thinks you’re going to be making that every week so more taxes will be taken out.
In reality this only effects the size of your tax bill or return at the end of the year.
That’s what people see and exactly why they think they got kicked up a whole tax bracket.
This is not a US specific issue, tbh. I’ve heard this weird belief repeated by all sorts of people.
You’re absolutely right. I cant speak for anyone else, as I don’t live there but I highly doubt the US is an exception.
Rather than being mad at each other, I want to make sure we hold the right people accountable! Governments, corporations, billionaires etc.
It’s a form of oppression.
I’ve had jobs (more than one), where working OT would result in my paycheck take home pay being less than if I had not worked the extra hours. And that’s because it moved me into the next bracket, and more taxes were taken out. So why waste my time working OT?
That’s not how is works though.
I’d you made say 1500 normally and 2000 with ot your take home could be 1200 and 1400. Paying more taxes overall on the ot but still taking home more.
There is no way you’d take home less money because taxes are paid on the first $1500 @ $300 and say the next $500 @ $300 too at a higher bracket. Overall your pay is still higher though even though your taxes “doubled”.
Well, it has happened more than once. Of course it would depend on the amount of overtime I worked. It probably happened if I only worked a little OT.
I think you’re on the wrong side of the chart here.
Tbh, literacy in the US, financial or otherwise is abysmal right now.
By design
No, they teach you this in high school. These people are just dumbasses
Yes, everyone’s education is the same as yours.
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 she 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.
That’s the general conservative mindset. It’s why lies work so well on them, get them to believe the lie and they’ll never let it go.
Hungary used to have a system, which worked like what the republicans imagined, which made “taxing the rich more” a widely unpopular move…
FWIW globally, there is the issue of “welfare traps”. Benefits for low income people are usually tied to income (or savings). Once income reaches a threshold, these benefits must be replaced with income. So a higher income may result in a net loss.
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.
i dont understand, isnt this graph showing that 2/3 of democrats dont understand how taxes work vs only 1/3 of republicans? wouldnt correct mean that yes, your tax bill goes up?
The options were that your taxes go up by a small amount or substantially. The correct answer is by a small amount since you only pay higher taxes on the one dollar that you’re over.
Nah, also you’re never going to lose out on income by making more money.
Like others said, the only possible exception is if you’re getting government assistance and get kicked off programs you’re in because you went past the cut off. So, as an example, let’s say you’re low income and you get vouchers for school. You could make enough money that you’re no longer eligible for that benefit but the amount you make over the cut off is less than what the benefit was.
But, that’s a specific situation. At no time will your taxes increase more than whatever additional income you’re getting. Period.
I’ve tried to explain that too many times now in my life and I’m not even that old. Just a lot of people are bamboozled by propaganda and lies.
When you are talking large income to larger income, that makes total sense, but are there limits for access to things like child tax credits where if you go over you are no longer eligible, causing significant increase (I just looked, and it’s at $200k single of $400k jointly, so unless you have A LOT of children, I suppose there wouldn’t be a huge effect)? Similar to people on government assistance who go from getting full assistance to getting nothing at a certain income level?
This is a big factor. A lot of people conflate less benefits with higher taxes because fear-brain just knows they both equal increased hardship in the end. They’re technically wrong but their statistically slightly more active amygdalas are responding to a genuine threat, just one that they’ve been very skillfully misdirected into helping worsen.
So an indoctrinated fear response that create a policy advantage for the very elites who created it.
Wow humans are so nice
Tell me you don’t know how income taxes work without telling me you don’t know how income taxes work.
My question is who does their taxes then?
A lot of people don’t know anything about taxes and have their tax return done by an accountant, even if their situation is extremely simple (works one job, no taxable investments or capital gains, no investment properties, no foreign taxes paid).
Even if they did go through the trouble to do their own taxes, the IRS specifically instructs taxpayers to not calculate it themselves, but rather to use a “tax table” to lookup their income and next to it is listed their income tax amount.
What a fucking stupid, needlessly complicated and not accessible system
That’s the point
These people are allowed to vote, and that is why we are all fucked.
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
This is actually not true as it doesn’t take into account the standard deduction
It does not take into account a lot of things, namely the many many deductions for qualifying individuals.
I upvoted because you chose to strike thru rather than delete. Big props for that
I try to be accurate. Hence why the comment in the first place.
Agreed, I love people that own their mistakes.
Read the chart, it says taxable income.
Deductions and other tax games may lower you’re taxable income, but the progressive tax brackets apply this way to all taxable income.
I’m more concerned about the 33% of dems who don’t understand this.
it’s in the shitpost community and there’s no sources cited
Oh
My tired brain read your comment as “shitpost economy” and somehow that still made sense to me.
I feel that “outgroup dumb” is shitposting but it’s from a real poll.
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/5057-understanding-how-marginal-taxes-work-its-all-part
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.
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.
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.
I think this is at least partially the result of intentional propaganda. It benefits the elite greatly if a lot of Americans are screaming against higher top tax rates due to this faulty logic. There are also a lot of anecdotes of people not accepting higher paying job offers or promotions within their company, which also benefits the business owners.
https://youtube.com/shorts/-621rVJvUdY
Mr. “Population collapse is the biggest threat to the world.”
Maybe it’s just the biggest threat to capitalism and your ROI. Why do you think he’s supporting the make everyone dumber party?
Shouldn’t it be physically possible to be taxed so much that your income lowers compared to what it was previously?
Like you would have to have a 20% bump in pay, and an increase in taxes that’s like 25-50% or something insane. Of course if you cherry pick data, and pick a high ceiling, and then just barely pass a threshold you can probably make it appear, but that would be a pretty well defined statistical anomaly. And, not very much money.
edit: and this is assuming that taxes literally just don’t work the way that they do, this is WITH broken tax logic.
of course, the idea of a progressive income tax is that at a certain point, it becomes untenable to hold so much money. But unless taxes are literally 100% it’s hard to make the argument that you’re “losing” money.
If the tax bracket for no taxes is $10k, you don’t get taxed if make under that.
If the tax bracket for 5% is $10-20k, and you made $15k, the first $10k is not taxed, but the $5k is taxed at %5.
So you would never make $0 after taxes, even if you made it into the hypothetical 100% tax bracket.
