You're not really rich if you have to work for pay to maintain a (relatively) expensive life style. It's the distinction between the rich and the "professional

You're not really rich if you have to work for pay to maintain a (relatively) expensive life style. It's the distinction between the rich and the "professional class" or "upper-middle class". The really rich are capitalists, in the sense of making their money from owning stuff. Looks like the top marginal rate's about 50% (including the top state rate of ~13%), but that's also way past the point where FICA's dropped off so it's not quite as bad (relative to middle tax brackets) as it looks. I can definitely see turning down ~50% of (say) $2,000 in exchange for a free Saturday if I'm already making north of a quarter-million a year (individual—brackets are higher for joint filing). Hell, when I was a freelancer, for every single vacation I took the main cost was foregone income, so I've even done basically that exact thing, though without being in that high a tax bracket. In fact, even today, I could probably take on paying work many weekends, and never do, so I make the same choice all the time despite being well under the top tax bracket. Like, working the weekend normally isn't worth it for most people who can possibly afford not to do it, tax bracket be damned. Did these doctors and lawyers work a pretty normal number of hours that week? If so, I don't really understand what you're getting at. Seems like they just wanted to frame a normal thing most people do as a complaint about taxes.