subject: Everything You Need To Know About Federal Income Tax Brackets [print this page] Federal Income Tax Brackets are incredibly mystifying. So loads of taxpayers utterly get it erroneous. Tax legal professional Anthony Parent explains what the myths are, and how to avoid frequent entanglements.
Every taxpayer needs to understand the historical circumstance first, however. Each major nation were ruined by one thing: High taxes. And the founders of this United States were well informed of this truth. Thus, they put language that forbade the national government from demanding a tax upon income. The idea of limited government ability, was overturned by a political group known as the progressives who thought that government intervention into nearly every matter would be a good idea. In essence, for the reason that Progressives thought they were noble and the common man far too dim-witted to appreciate what was good for him and believe Federal Income Tax Brackets was the solution.
With the Progressive's sixteenth Amendment in hand, Congress was now empowered to juice-up up the IRS with unimaginable powers. The Progressives claimed that the new income tax would only affect the wealthy and would be used not just to increase tax revenue for more government expenditure, but also "even the playing field."
Once Congress had the lawful authority to assess an income Federal Income Tax Brackets, rapidly the promised narrow scope of the income tax was widened to drag nearly everybody down. FDR was succesful in creating an entirely new category of tax imposed on income: the employment taxes.
The IRS also extracts employment and self-employment taxes which almost affect all wage earners. Employment and self employment taxes comprise over 50% of all taxes the IRS collects from individual taxpayers. Federal Income Tax Brackets are totally silent to these employment and self employment taxes.
The existing tax bracket rates of 10, 15, 25, 28, 33, and 35% for individual taxpayers. Filing status also determines which tax bracket rate applies, not just income. Employment taxes are nowhere to be found in these tax bracket rates. This omission is significant.
Yet, these tax bracket rates will not be relevant to some types on income earnings. And as an added reward, the employment and self employment taxes referred to above are not imposed either. The kinds of taxes that obtain special treatment are long term capital gains, dividends and passive income from real estate investments.
Higher wages earners may not even need to think about these Federal Income Tax Brackets as the Alternative Minimum Tax applies. The taxes the AMT assessed may be higher than the ordinary tax brackets, so don't be fooled by the name. Countless times there is nothing minimum about the AMT. The differences could be enormous. The cause is that the IRS charges a lower tax rate, but begins to eliminate useful write-offs akin to local and state taxes.
The truth is that Federal Income Tax Brackets are incredibly ambiguous. There is limited correlation between earnings and the tax rate actually paid. It is essential not to rely on tax bracets for tax planning purposes.
