2023 tax brackets work best for the rich.

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Which reminds me.

I see that because of inflation Social Security will be increasing benefits by roughly 8%.

Because I changed careers 30 years before retiring from teaching, my Social Security benefit has been reduced by about two thirds. The Social Security COLA adjustment will amount to $24 dollars a month.

I will try not to spend it all in one place.

Meanwhile my state teacher public pension is locked in at a 3% increase. It does not respond to current runaway inflation.

In other inflation news, the IRS will change the tax brackets for 2023.

This is all done using percentages of course, so the rich will save far more money than the working class taxpayer.

It’s no surprise of course.

But still.

First of all, it is so wrong that the top tax bracket is only 37%.

In 1980 Ronald Reagan was elected and promised to cut the top marginal tax rate. This he did, and the top marginal tax rate was lowered over his 8 years in office from 73% to 28% on incomes over just $29,750 - the lowest this rate had been since 1925.

Eventually it went up to the current 37%.

As the chart above shows, those in the top bracket will “save” on their taxable earnings over $100,000.

Those of us near the bottom in the 22% bracket will go up only $44,100.

The annual gift tax exclusion — the maximum amount one person can give another without incurring a tax penalty — will rise to $17,000 from $16,000. The estate tax threshold, often used by the wealthiest Americans to shield inherited assets from levies, will jump to $12.9 million from $12.1 million.