Average Tax Rates for Married with Two Kids and One Income: 2009

by Catherine Mulbrandon on April 1, 2010

The sixth in series of infographics I am designing to illustrate the average federal tax rate applied to different salaries. This time I am graphing the average tax rates for a married couple with to kids and one salary. With 2 kids there are 2 more exemptions which increases the income tax cut offs for all tax brackets compared to the married with no children graphic.

If you take a look at your W-2 form you can see that there are 3 different taxes applied to salaries and wages:

The income tax graph is created from the 2009 tax schedule for a couple filing jointly or qualifying widow(er):

which you can find from the IRS Tax Tables here while the information about the social security and medicare tax can be found here.

Tagged as: Area Graph, Average Tax Rate, IRS, Line Graph, Tax Rates, United States

  • Catherine

    These graphics are terrific. One question – are you including the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)?

  • Michael B

    I would like to see a overlapped graph that shows net take-home pay after incorporating Tax Credits. Here is why:

    Example (for 2009 taxes):
    Married with 2 kids; income $12,500 gets these tax credits (at least):
    $5028 (for 2 kids) See “2009 Earned Income Credit (EIC) Table” Form 1040
    $2000 Child tax credit
    $800 Making work pay and government retiree credit.
    —————–
    $7828 TOTAL *** This is increased their net income by 63% to $20,328 ****

    These Tax credits eventually phase out or disappear suddenly with higher income.
    Example: If their income is $42,500 get zero EIC
    If their income was $37,500 ($5000 less) they would get $1647 EIC, and pay $600 less in taxes making the difference $2247 (1647+600).

    It would be really cool to see tax credits incorporated into these graphs.
    Or, just adjust the “marginal tax rate” line to include tax credits.

  • Catherine

    No AMT is in the graphs at the moment but I hope to perform some variations of the graphs in the future

  • Catherine

    I like the idea of adding tax credits. This first set is a baseline that I can modify as needed. My hope is to add over time more complexity to the graphs i.e. payroll, deductions, credits.

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