<prompt> Human: My fiancé will be going into salary negotiations soon so I looked up what tax bracket values were. I have a few questions based on an example I will write below:Say your base salary is 180k a year, this puts you in the 28 tax bracket. You receive a 15 bonus each year in March 15 of 180k, this bonus makes your overall income for the year fall into the 33 tax bracket. Does each paycheck only have the 28 tax rate taken out? Do you have to end up paying taxes or just receive a lower tax refund the next year when filing taxes because you made more than the lowest value that puts you into the next tax bracket? If you make 191,650 or more a year than you are in the 33 tax bracket. If you make 200k a year, you are bringing home the same as someone who made 190k at the 28 tax rate.Would it make more sense to target 200-215k a year to make sure that your base salary is in the next tax bracket and not worry about the bonus being the reason why you are in the next tax bracket? What would the best strategy be when you are close to tax bracket maximums and minimums. A 5 jump is a lot when you are closer to the minimum of the bracket, 191,650 - 416,700 seems like way too wide of a range :-Sorry, just a bit confused about this. Tried googling a few things and didnt find anything that helped. EDIT: Thank you everyone for the help, everything is much clearer now. Now time to strategize for tax minimization.  <response>: Sounds like you need to do some reading about marginal tax brackets. See the wiki link from the auto mod comment. 