Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. If you earn more than $150,000 a year, you're firmly in the upper tier of U.S. income earners, but that doesn't automatically mean you're being crushed by taxes. What does change at this level is complexity. Phase-outs begin, surtaxes come into play, and certain compensation structures can quietly raise your tax bill if they aren't planned for ahead of time. The problem isn't that six-figure earners are ...