Guess it depends on where you are. I'm paid biweekly... usually taxed around 30%. But when we get backpay or get paid out for various types of time, when it's lumped into normal pay, the rate has been almost 50% at times. Recently had some backpay come through and on a 10K paycheck, I paid nearly 5K in taxes. Not quite 5 but pretty close iirc.
Yeah, the way tax bands work can be confusing but the gist is that as you earn more money, you pay a higher rate of tax on the earnings over a set of thresholds.
People sometimes assume that if they go into a higher tax bracket that all their earnings are taxed more harshly. But that is not the case.
For the sake of argument you are taxed 10% of your first $10k and 20% above that. If you earn $10k you would pay $1k tax.
If you earn $11k you would pay $1k tax on the first $10k and then $200 on the rest(20% of $1k). That percentage increases as you earn more, Google and you'll find the exact brackets and percentages very easily.
In your case, receiving a big paycheck and losing what you say is a disproportionate amount of it almost certainly means that your payroll department's software has calculated your tax on the basis that you'll be paid that amount every week (or whatever their normal pay schedule is) rather than this being a payment for a longer period than usual.
This means that if you only worked one month a year, earning exactly $10k, the payroll department would assume you were going to earn that amount every month (unless informed of your specific work schedule) and as a result will deduct the amount of tax that you'd pay if you earn $120k annually, not the amount that you'd pay if you were to earn $10k annually.
The payroll system should be sophisticated enough to see that occasional larger payments aren't your normal pay and try to balance the amount of tax on other months to take that into account. That may not be possible as the thing that a payroll department will try to do is ensure that you are not undertaxed so that you don't have to pay an unexpected tax bill at the end of the financial year.
At the end of the financial year you'll be able to see your total pre tax earning and how much tax you paid. If you paid more tax than was necessary, you'll be due a rebate, so if you do have unpredictable or variable pay it might be in your interest to keep your pay slips so you can check that all the numbers add up.
You will be able to Google a tax calculator where you'll be able to type in your total pre tax earnings and check that your tax is not disproportionate.
That's how it works here in the UK, so there may be some vagaries in the US, but Google suggests it's basically the same.
Either way, everyone who earns the same amount of money as you should pay the same amount of tax over a year, wether you earn it over a year or in a day. If you are paying more, or think you are, then it's worth checking.
