Well then you didn't make a million dollars, you made 500k. Gross is an admittingly galling fiction but is for day to day purposes pretty much that, a fiction.
Transform these %50 taxes (money you're giving away for free) into time. You're now working %50 of the time for free while you could spend more time with your family, kids, friends, learning things, etc. It's not a fiction, it's reality.