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Two issues here. First you aren't taxed on your gross income, at the minimum you'd typically reduce your gross income by the standard deduction (12,550 for single, though doesn't apply if married filing single or if you're a nonresident alien/dual status alien barring certain exceptions). Search "taxable income vs gross income", or "adjustments to gross income" for some more info on what could affect your taxable income, but for a quick estimate the standard deduction is likely adequate.

Second, the highest tax rate does not apply to all your taxable income, just the amount of taxable income that falls into that tax bracket. So you wouldn't pay 24% or 32% on all of your taxable income, just a portion. You'll pay the lower rates on the other portions of your income. This 2021 tax bracket makes it easy as it calculates the total tax-owed for all prior brackets:

Single filers

Tax rate Taxable income bracket Tax owed
10% $0 to $9,950 10% of taxable income
12% $9,951 to $40,525 $995 plus 12% of the amount over $9,950
22% $40,526 to $86,375 $4,664 plus 22% of the amount over $40,525
24% $86,376 to $164,925 $14,751 plus 24% of the amount over $86,375
32% $164,926 to $209,425 $33,603 plus 32% of the amount over $164,925
35% $209,426 to $523,600 $47,843 plus 35% of the amount over $209,425
37% $523,601 or more $157,804.25 plus 37% of the amount over $523,000

Assuming you only take the standard deduction and no other adjustments, your taxable income would be either $153,000 - $12,550 = $140,450 or $175,000 - 12,550 = $162,450

Your top marginal rate would be 24% for either, so the difference in tax paid would just be 24% of the difference in taxable income between the two:

162,450 - 140,450 = 22,000 -- difference in taxable income
22,000 * .24 = 5,280 -- additional tax paid with higher salary
22,000 * .76 = 16,720 -- additional net income with higher salary

If the top marginal rates were in different brackets you could do the math for the 'tax-owed' column to compare or calculate how much of the difference in taxable income gets taxed at each rate.

Hart CO
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