Did you know your employer also pays tax on your salary? It costs the employer $150 to pay you $5,000. In other words, every time you spend $10 of your hard-earned money, $3.03 goes to the government.

So, with you and the employer both paying tax, what used to be a 27.3% tax rate now rises to 29.5%, meaning your real tax rate is actually 2.2% higher than what it seemed at first.