Did you know your employer also pays tax on your salary? It costs the employer $115 to pay you $3,846. In other words, every time you spend $10 of your hard-earned money, $2.84 goes to the government.

So, with you and the employer both paying tax, what used to be a 25.4% tax rate now rises to 27.5%, meaning your real tax rate is actually 2.1% higher than what it seemed at first.