Did you know your employer also pays tax on your salary? It costs the employer $17 to pay you $577. In other words, every time you spend $10 of your hard-earned money, $1.87 goes to the government.

So, with you and the employer both paying tax, what used to be a 15.7% tax rate now rises to 18.1%, meaning your real tax rate is actually 2.4% higher than what it seemed at first.