<prompt> Human: My girlfriend is now making 19.50 dollars an hour in a temp position. without seeing a pay stub it looks like out of a roughly 1600 before tax check she got about 1200. It appears that she is barely falling in to the 25 tax bracket. Is there a way she can work a few less hours a week and fall back in to the 15 bracket so she can work less to make about the same amount? I am not entirely sure how this works out, but if anybody has some advice or general knowledge on the subject that would be amazing.  <response>: No, thats not how tax brackets work at all. You cant gross less and net more by falling back into a lower bracket.First of all, grossing 1,600 and netting 1,200 doesnt mean shes in the 25 bracket, if thats what youre implying. There are a variety of deductions from a paycheck, like social security 6.2, Medicare 1.45, federal income taxes which are the ones that use the IRS brackets, state income tax, unemployment tax, insurance deductions, etc. You may have looked at the tax tables and seen something like this:0 - 10,000: 1010,001 - 38,000: 1538,001 - 90,000: 25Etc.That doesnt mean if you make 38,000, you pay 15 tax, but if you make 38,001 you pay 25 tax. These are marginal tax brackets - the rates only apply to the dollars earned in each bracket. So if you earn 40,000 a year, you dont pay 10,000 tax 25, you pay:10 on the first 10,000 1,00015 on the next 28,000 4,20025 on the next 2,000 500Total tax due 1,000 4,200 500 5,700. 