@VolvoGirl wrote:
I once added $6 in interest and the tax went up $12! It pushed me into the next tax bracket. I was right at the line.
That's not due to tax brackets, that's because of how the tax tables work. Rather than having taxpayers calculate percentages, the IRS publishes tax tables, and the software uses the same tables. For example, a single taxpayer with income between $62,650-62,700 will pay $9,406 in tax. If you go over $67,701, the tax jumps to 9,417, an $11 increase, regardless of whether your income changes by $1 (from 67,700 to 67,70) or by $51 (from 62650 to 62710). It averages out over the population but can hit some people extra hard.
The tables are here, if you are curious.
https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1040tt
But that does not explain the size of this taxpayer's change.
