[This post is supplemental to comments made in the previous post.]



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86% of all federal income taxes are paid by the top 25% of income earners.
(Up from 84.0% in 2000)

--The Top 50% pay 97% of all income taxes
--The Top 1% pay 39%, up 2% from 2000 when Bush took office

Source Link: Data from the Latest Tax Year Released by the IRS. Run the Numbers! After the Bush Tax Cuts, the Rich Pay More Taxes!
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Wall Street Journal: "In 1980, when the top income tax rate was 70%, the richest 1% paid only 19% of all income taxes; now, with a top rate of 35%, they pay more than double that share."


Other Links:

Who Pays America's Tax Burden, and Who Gets the Most Government Spending?

Here's a relevant passage:

"While the U.S. tax system is progressive, the distribution of government spending makes the overall fiscal system more progressive than is apparent from tax distributions alone. Using a microdata model we estimate the distribution of federal, state and local taxes and spending between 1991 and 2004. We find households in the lowest quintile of income received roughly $8.21 in federal, state and local government spending for every dollar of taxes paid in 2004, while households in the middle quintile received $1.30, and households in the top quintile received $0.41. Overall, tax payments exceeded government spending received for the top two quintiles of income, resulting in a net fiscal transfer of between $1.031 trillion and $1.527 trillion between quintiles. Both taxes and spending appear to have large distributional effects on households, and these effects have grown since 1991. The results suggest tax distributions alone are an inadequate measure of progressivity, and policymakers should examine both tax and spending distributions when judging the overall fairness of policy toward income groups."

"Though tax cuts for the rich were bigger than those for other groups, the wealthiest families paid a bigger share of total taxes. That is because their incomes have climbed far more rapidly, and the gap between rich and poor has widened in the last several years."