In the UK, exceeding £100,000 in household income for individuals making use of “Free Childcare for Working Parents” is indeed one of these pathological cases. Benefits cliffs frequently make things nonlinear unfortunately! That said I do recognize that OP’s original point was not about benefits. Even setting benefits aside however, my understanding is that there are cases where you might not want to be pushed into a higher bracket (e.g. drawing down from a retirement pot of fixed size, where funds drawn from it are considered “income” only in the year(s) in which they are withdrawn: often better to draw down relatively evenly over n years rather than most of it in a single year, due to tax brackets). Most talk of “not wanting to be pushed into a higher tax bracket” that I have heard comes from people in this and similar situations.
In the UK, exceeding £100,000 in household income for individuals making use of “Free Childcare for Working Parents” is indeed one of these pathological cases. Benefits cliffs frequently make things nonlinear unfortunately!
That said I do recognize that OP’s original point was not about benefits. Even setting benefits aside however, my understanding is that there are cases where you might not want to be pushed into a higher bracket (e.g. drawing down from a retirement pot of fixed size, where funds drawn from it are considered “income” only in the year(s) in which they are withdrawn: often better to draw down relatively evenly over n years rather than most of it in a single year, due to tax brackets). Most talk of “not wanting to be pushed into a higher tax bracket” that I have heard comes from people in this and similar situations.