I'm not saying you're wrong - I completely agree with you. But I have been in the position where, if I made 10 dollars less I would have paid more than 100 dollars less in tax. That just comes from the infuriating discrete tax "tables," instead of actually calculating the tax using a continuous formula.

ETA: Apparently many here have never prepared their own tax return. Here is a sample of the tax table for 2023. The first two columns give a range of (adjusted) income, and the third is tax owed. Notice that someone who made $51,099 would pay $11 less in tax than someone who made just one dollar more. Admittedly that is less extreme that what I claimed above, but "back in the day" when I started paying taxes the tables went in much larger steps of income.