Marginal vs. effective tax rates are two ways to express the percentage of your income that goes to tax. But they're each used for very different purposes.

Effective tax rate is your average tax rate as a percentage of total income. Marginal tax rate is the tax on your highest dollar earned, not your total income. Historically, top marginal rates have ...

is—it’s effectively a percentage of an amount over a year. If your savings account earns you a 0.05% interest per year (which ...