I hate IRS wrote:
And another $16k to the state. This was after greatly increasing my withholdings when my wife went back to work last year. Just to the feds, I’m paying $89,000 for 2020. What’s the sweet spot I need to reduce our income to so I can pay a reasonable amount of taxes?
You are actually not paying that much more as percentage than a lot of people making $120,000K. Assuming you max out fringe benefits at work. Most of your income is not subject to Social Security taxes which is taxed on everyone earned income starting at the first dollar. But its capped at around $130K. I'm not even counting all the unrealized income you made this past year on the value of your house and the stocks you own which the government kindly artificially inflated for you.
But i do admit, that extra bit of marginal income you make can be a killer, especially if the state has a high income tax rate. So to answer your question. $326,000 would be good income amount of taxable income to shoot for. That is where the 24% tax bracket ends for MFJ filers. After that it jumps to 32%, which is a pretty good jump. I'm guessing your taxable income about $400K.