Did you know your employer also pays tax on your salary? It costs the employer $5,100 to pay you $170,000. In other words, every time you spend $10 of your hard-earned money, $3.17 goes to the government.

So, with you and the employer both paying tax, what used to be a 28.7% tax rate now rises to 30.7%, meaning your real tax rate is actually 2% higher than what it seemed at first.