Who pays how much tax anyway?

With the recent upheaval within the US Congress over the continuation of the Bush-era tax cuts, much of the debate has been over whether to increase rates for the "rich".  I was curious to discover how many tax payers there actually are and how collections are spread among the income groups.

As you note in the IRS chart below, there are only about 140,000 returns filed each year for just over $1 trillion collections.  As regards income, it seems that $33,000 is the break between the top 50% and lower 50%.  AGI means adjusted gross income.

Very interesting numbers!  For instance, the top 10% (with incomes above $114,000) have a total share of 45.7% of total income, but pay 69.9% of all taxes.  The top 1% of earners pay 38% of all monies collected by the IRS. They only earn about 20%.

The lower 50% (almost 70 million people), who are also in many cases receiving government benefits, pay only 2.7% of the entire monies collected. 

So, are the rich somehow escaping their fair share?  Do they have some sort of free ride?  Look at the data yourself and make your own decision.

There is an excellent commentary on this in a recent Reason Magazine piece.