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marginal tax rates

Marginal Tax Rate VS Effective Tax Rate – Why You Need to Know the Difference

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Pop Quiz – What’s your effective tax rate for 2014? How about your marginal tax rate?

Don’t worry if you’re not sure.

Truth is most of us have no idea what either our marginal or effective income tax rates are.

They only seem to matter at income tax filing time, usually appearing as supplemental numbers in a computer generated income tax return.

One of the reasons we tend not to track these numbers is because they’re calculations, which for the most part, have no immediate relevance to us, but also because of complications in calculating them.

Because we have a progressive income tax system — tax rates rise with income — and because there are multiple taxes, the actual numbers can be difficult to calculate. In addition, each rate can change from one year to the next or from complications in the tax code.

We have two tax rate classifications then, marginal tax rate and effective tax rate.

Keep reading and you’ll learn the difference between the two as well as why it’s important to know the difference between them.

What is the marginal tax rate and the effective tax rate and how and when do they apply?

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2012 Federal Income Tax Brackets and Marginal Tax Rates

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The Federal Income Tax brackets and marginal tax rates for 2012 are out, and we’ll take a look at how the changes affect single taxpayers, those who are married filing jointly, those married filing separately, and head of household.

The changes from 2011 to 2012 are fairly small but they can have an impact for those who are at or over a threshold.

By knowing what bracket and marginal rate you may fall in, you can tax plan to lower your taxable income.

Every year the Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, uses inflation data to revise the bracket amounts.  Congress sets the marginal rate percentages with changes in the law.

Note the marginal tax rates are remaining the same in 2012 as they were in 2011.  It’s the dollar amount of the tax brackets that’s changing.

Before we jump into the changes I want to let you know that a qualifying widow(er) follows the same rates as married filing jointly.

The 10% tax bracket—the lowest marginal tax rate

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2011 Federal Income Tax Brackets and Marginal Tax Rates

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Going into 2011, it was thought that the federal income tax brackets and marginal tax rates were going to change drastically because of the Bush-era tax cuts expiring.

However, they were extended for another two years, so the tax brackets and marginal rates aren’t going to change very much going from 2010 to 2011.

Here we’re going to take a look at each of the Federal Income Tax brackets and marginal tax rates for both single taxpayers and married couples filing jointly, and take a look at what is changing going into 2011.

Note: click here for the 2012 Federal Income Tax Brackets and Marginal Rates.

The lowest marginal tax rate is the 10% bracket.

The range of income covered by this bracket in 2010 was $0 to $8,375, but going into 2011, the upper limit is changed to $8,500.  Similarly, the married couples filing jointly will see a raise from $0-$16,750 to $0-$17,000.  These aren’t very big changes, and won’t change tax amounts for many people by a large amount at all.
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