Actual number on a regular paycheck, on average - 27%. Sorry for the round up to the nearest whole 10th for ease.
As far as non-regular paychecks, e.g. those that have per-diems + field bonus + hazard pay on top of my regular salaried paycheck: 47% on average, and I am not joking here.
Why are my tax rates that high? Because I am single with no children. Am I making that much? No, I make roughly 50 - 70 K / year. Hell, they probably charge me extra taxes because I was "privileged" enough to go to engineering school for 6 years and walk out with a mountain of debt which I had to pay off all the way recently because our government thinks they can raise interest rates on those loans. Uncle Sugar gets enough of my money in taxes, I wasn't about to pay more than I agreed to on my school loans.
I would REALLY like to get a house and some property sometime in the next century. Wonder if that'll bring my taxes down at all?
Those percentages are not possible if you're making 50-70k per year, even with California's additional income tax (consider: the sum total of the highest CA bracket and federal tax brackets, which applies to money over 1 million and 388k, respectively, is only a 45.5%
marginal rate). Moreover, are you getting anything back at the end of the tax year? If so, you need to deduct that to get your actual effective tax rate. E.g. when I was working a summer job in college where I was told "get this done by the end of three months", I was putting in 100+ hour weeks and getting paid/taxed as if I earned that amount year round. Since I hadn't claimed additional withholding, I ended up getting most of that money back, making my tax rate much lower than what it was.
And despite your sarcasm quotes, it really is a mixture of luck and effort that gets you into a position where you can work for a comfortable living with a good chance of retirement. I was lucky enough to be born into a family that could afford computers, that put an investment into my education and wellbeing, such that I didn't have to choose between self-improvement and survival. While I certainly had to and continue to have to work to graduate with an engineering degree and land a good job, there's no denying that luck played a role in my present high level of earnings.
Add to that the fact we're at a point in history with some of the lowest overall taxes despite a wealth of services and support that was not available. It's really somewhat silly to claim 30% is "too dear", since it's neither the amount you're actually paying nor historically high.
