This is a quibble, but 35% for the top bracket of your income is not the same as a 35% federal tax. You would need to be a quite high income for this to be true since the top bracket currently is 37% and the second highest is 35%. Someone making $200k today has an effective tax rate of 20%. You would need to make $2 million today to have an effective tax rate of 35%.
> This is a quibble, but 35% for the top bracket of your income is not the same as a 35% federal tax.
That's not a quibble at all, it's a very important point. The number of people who confuse "tax bracket" with "effective tax rate" is regrettably quite large.
> Aren't state and local taxes also deductible from federal income taxes?
Yes, but the Trump tax changes put a $10,000 cap on this deduction, which is significantly lower than the standard deduction. Combined with low mortgage interest and the lower cap for new mortgage balances whose interest is deductable, a lot of people went to the standard deduction.
I'm picking the year 2015 because you're clearly talking about the past in your statement, so bear in mind the numbers change over time.
In order to hit 8% (8.82%) in NYS in 2015, you needed to make a little over a million dollars a year (single) or 2 million (joint).
The next lowest is 6.85%, for 212k single, 318k joint.
For federal to hit 35%, you need to make 411k (single or joint.. which makes no sense).
So your numbers more or less stand up to scrutiny for marginal income, but I would guess not even close to that for effective tax rate. I don't think it's fair to present your marginal tax rate as "your tax rate" in a discussion about how much of your income you get to keep. That's even more so when it's before you account for deductions.
They absolutely are. You don’t get to artificially limit scope just because it suits you. If you get robbed both at the ATM and on the way home you’re still coming back with less cash!
I didn't say I don't consider them to be taxes. I said I don't consider them in this discussion because they're not part of how much of your salary you take home.
To look at it from another point of view... If _all_ the money you made came from long term capital gains, the taxes you pay on it would be based on totally different tax rules. Capital gains taxes are certainly impacting how much you "spend" on taxes, but they don't impact how much of your "salary" goes to taxes.... because you don't have a salary.
https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes
EDIT: Aren't state and local taxes also deductible from federal income taxes? I'm certainly not a tax expert, so correct me if I'm wrong.