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after taxes I think both those numbers turn out to feel not all that different!

Yes, yes they do. After you get to deduct your 401(k) contributions, your FSA, your mortgage interest, get deductions for having kids, you don't pay nearly 20-30% of your gross salary in taxes. It's probably closer to 10% when you're at the 100K level, which means you're only nibbling off $3-4,000 of that difference. That leaves about $25K difference per year, or $2K/mo. That's certainly noticeable.

Ummm... many people don't have those things to deduct. This is actually a fairly good example of how crooked the tax code can be. When I rent, I don't get to deduct any of it.

You can say that owning a house is more socially desirable and thus subsidized, but that's still not really fair to those of us simply too young to have saved a down-payment.

I live in Australia. I get taxed 22% - 30% plus 9% for superannuation contributions. Not a huge difference in tax for both those tax brackets.

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