Did you know your employer also pays tax on your salary? It costs the employer $2,100 to pay you $70,000. In other words, every time you spend $10 of your hard-earned money, $2.45 goes to the government.

So, with you and the employer both paying tax, what used to be a 21.5% tax rate now rises to 23.8%, meaning your real tax rate is actually 2.3% higher than what it seemed at first.