The more correct statement is "you never pay more in taxes by moving up a bracket" - though even that is not correct in all cases. There are a lot of things (I

The more correct statement is "you never pay more in taxes by moving up a bracket" - though even that is not correct in all cases. There are a lot of things (IETC for example, or benefits, or health insurance) which have $ cutoffs. Or tax breaks (i.e. electric vehicle credit) that only apply below a certain income. Exceeding those fixed points can certainly make you make less money. One thing I ran into recently was fiscal incentives for homeownership (though not directly related to taxes) - there is a cutoff at a certain income level where if you stay below it you get a $10K credit towards closing costs. The tax code is full of things like that.