>>81668491
>but those rates were set in 1988 when 50k was an astonishing amount of money to make in a year.
In 1989-1900 the 40% higher rate started at 20.7k, not 50k. It hasn't increased for a while, but it generally did increase with inflation for a while.

>>81668503
>on 40k at some point in my life it was fine
Depends when "some point" was. I was on 40k 7-8 years ago and CPI is a hell of a lot different now to then.