Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
no where in life do people insist on doing the things they don't understand and don't seek help or try to learn
they put more time in to learning about their car or refrigerator .
worse is they hate to spend money to get help and want only free advice .
if the cost of good financial advice is expensive to you , you can't afford free .
A group of us were sitting around talking about taxes and one man was complaining about his wife's income putting them in the 25% tax bracket. He said, "It's tough knowing that Washington steals 25% of our income!"
I tried to explain to him that just because he and his wife were at the 25% tax bracket does not mean that they are paying 25% of their income in tax. He rejected my statement out of hand.
I kept trying, telling him:
What about the personal exemptions for both you and your wife that are subtracted from your taxable income?
What about the standard deduction or the itemized deductions that are subtracted from your taxable income?
And I tried to explain to him that most of his taxable income is taxed at the 15% rate and only the amount over a certain amount is taxed at 25%.
He and the rest of the group dismissed my analysis out of hand. I wonder if other people are so ignorant about taxes.
People who don't understand tax brackets (wrongly) believe they are taxed more heavily than they are - it's a way to feel more like a victim.
no where in life do people insist on doing the things they don't understand and don't seek help or try to learn
they put more time in to learning about their car or refrigerator .
worse is they hate to spend money to get help and want only free advice .
if the cost of good financial advice is expensive to you , you can't afford free .
I assure you the people who take issue with the topic of withholding on overtime and bonuses are 95% of the time not taking issue with marginal rates as I'm sure they don't understand those either. What they do take issue with is the withholding rate because that's what they see coming out on payday not realizing it isn't directly correlated to their actual obligation
Yup, I just lower my witholdings because I know the bonus is going to have such high witholdings. A lot of times my bonus witholdings end up covering 50% of what we owe the Feds every year.
Many people are ignorant financially.
Some don't care to change it.
Some want to, but can't.
The rest are just stupid.
Take me for example. For the last decade I did not care to change it. This was because I was unemployed.
This year, I made just enough to think about filing. Unfortunately I live in a place where there are few resources to learn. Now that I want to learn, I find it very difficult to get any help.
A group of us were sitting around talking about taxes and one man was complaining about his wife's income putting them in the 25% tax bracket. He said, "It's tough knowing that Washington steals 25% of our income!"
I tried to explain to him that just because he and his wife were at the 25% tax bracket does not mean that they are paying 25% of their income in tax. He rejected my statement out of hand.
I kept trying, telling him:
What about the personal exemptions for both you and your wife that are subtracted from your taxable income?
What about the standard deduction or the itemized deductions that are subtracted from your taxable income?
And I tried to explain to him that most of his taxable income is taxed at the 15% rate and only the amount over a certain amount is taxed at 25%.
He and the rest of the group dismissed my analysis out of hand. I wonder if other people are so ignorant about taxes.
I've learned early on that most people are not only financially illiterate but functionally illiterate. Many can't complete simple reasoning and logic exercises. So when I find myself with such people I tend to just things go. There's a lot of truth to the saying about arguing with fools.
the amt tax is almost a flat 28% from dollar one , throw in nyc city and state tax and we pay more than 25% that is for sure. there are two parallel tax systems in place in our tax system . a marginal one , and one that phases out almost all deductions and exemptions .
the amt system starts to phase in as low as around 75k based on deductions and capital gains levels .
There is a special place in hell for Treasury Secretary Joseph Barr (the "creator" of the AMT).
thank god i am retired and had a much smaller taxable income for 2016 because i am delaying ss and live off cash mostly for the first 2 years .
we had so much in medical deductions and insurance that we surely would have tripped it on deductions .
we paid a grand total of 4k in fed and 1900.00 bucks in nys and nyc taxes .
when we were working and wheeling and dealing in real estate we had years we paid 6 digits in federal taxes
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
