Well my concern will be the exemptions. The poor think they ought not have to pay. The retiring think they ought not have to pay. Who pays? The bees? We need a fair system where everyone is treated equally. People should be encouraged to work. Some of us won’t work much OT because it puts us in a higher income bracket. Several years ago, I got a cost of living raise. I was shocked that I then made a few dollars less. I tried to refuse the raise but was told I had to take it.
I see this all the time. There are no circumstances where earning more money means that you take home less. If the additional money bumps your total into the next tax bracket, you only pay THAT bracket on the dollars that were earned above the threshold. That top bracket for you does not apply to the dollars earned through the lower brackets.
In your particular circumstance, I suspect, you got a raise that applied January first. Lo and behold, less money in the first check. How can that happen? Easy, there are plenty of taxes that cap out, including Social Security so that towards the end of the year, you were taking home more than the beginning of the year even though you didn't get a bump in income.