Did you know your employer also pays tax on your salary? It costs the employer $225 to pay you $7,500. In other words, every time you spend $10 of your hard-earned money, $2.74 goes to the government.

So, with you and the employer both paying tax, what used to be a 24.4% tax rate now rises to 26.6%, meaning your real tax rate is actually 2.2% higher than what it seemed at first.