Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Likely not. When we hear these kind of numbers - 25 percent tax rate, 33 percent tax rate - what is usually being referred to is what's called marginal tax rate, which is the tax rate that a person pays on their highest category of income. Now by category of income what I mean is that the federal government for the federal income tax specifically actually breaks your taxable income into different pieces or categories. Each piece is actually taxed at a different rate, and the highest rate or the highest category would have applied to it the highest tax rate. Now this still means that your tax bill is going up if that highest tax rate applied to your highest category of income is going up. But it doesn't mean that that highest tax rate applies to all of your income. It still, however, is important because often times people will make decisions based on the extra money that they will earn. So if that extra money is taxed at a higher rate that may have a profound influence on whether they try to earn those extra bucks or not."