Reply #64: The steps are there for ease of understanding, more or less.

[dbmk]

And as the tax percentages are only for the part of your income _in_ those brackets, higher gross will always mean higher net. All other things being equal.
Common misconception - and I suspect the root cause for a lot of what I will call inflated statements about taxes.

If its 10% under 100k and 20% over 100k, then someone who makes 99k will pay 9.9k in taxes and have a net of 89.1k. Someone who makes 101k will pay 10% of the 100k and 20% of the 1k above it = 10k+0.2k = 10.2k - leading to a net of 90.8k.

A sloped line, on its face, would seem the right thing to do - but has two issues that makes it a problem to implement:

1) Your tax percentage would be a formula. Try selling that to the public. :)
(With brackets it still is a formula, and a more complicated on at that, ofc. But the clearly defined limits on the brackets puts it in terms people (think they) can understand.)

2) Most importantly: A simple sloped line would have to cross 100% at some income point. Now try selling THAT to the public. :)