Rate schedule (federal income tax) than a dollar in taxable income, thus making the marginal tax rate greater than what is suggested by the table. These schedules apply only to regular US income tax, whereas there is a second income tax, the Alternative Minimum Tax, that uses a different schedule. A taxpayer's tax obligation is the higher of those two income taxes, which makes drawing conclusions from the table even more difficult. All rate schedules have an identical format, containing four columns and seven rows (called "brackets"). The first two columns indicate the range of taxable income that a taxpayer must have to qualify for
Income tax in the United States on saved income is itself taxed. To the extent that this is considered unjust, it may be remedied in a variety of ways, e.g. excluding investment income from taxable income, making investments deductible and therefore only taxing them when gains are realized, or replacing the income tax by other forms of tax, such as a sales tax. Some economists believe income taxation offers the federal government a technique to diminish the power of the states, because the federal government is then able to distribute funding to states with conditions attached, often giving the states no choice but to submit to