Tax Foundation:   “Newly released data from the IRS clearly debunks the conventional Beltway rhetoric that the ‘rich’ are not paying their fair share of taxes.  Indeed, the IRS data shows that in 2007—the most recent data available—the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government.  This is the highest percentage in modern history.   By contrast, the top 1 percent paid 24.8 percent of the income tax burden in 1987, the year following the 1986 tax reform act.   Remarkably, the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1 percent now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined.  In 2007, the bottom 95 percent paid 39.4 percent of the income tax burden. This is down from the 58 percent of the total income tax burden they paid twenty years ago.”

To put this in perspective, the top 1 percent is comprised of just 1.4 million taxpayers and they pay a larger share of the income tax burden now than the bottom 134 million taxpayers combined.

Read the new Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact or view the data.

Related posts:

  1. Alternative Minimum Tax Time Bomb Explodes in 2010
  2. To Close Deficit, Federal Income Tax Rates Would Have to Nearly Triple
  3. Holy Tax the Rich Batman: Top 1% of Taxpayers Pay More Federal Taxes than Bottom 95%
  4. Obama’s Budget to Redistribute $118 Billion
  5. 47% of U.S. Pays No Federal Income Tax
  6. Small Businesses Face Steep Tax Hikes Unless Congress Acts Soon
  7. Rich Pay 40% of Nation’s Tax Burden, Hillary Clinton Says Its Not Enough
  8. The Income Tax Ranking Calculator – See Where Your Income Puts You in Relation to All Other U.S. Taxpayers
  9. Evil Bush Tax Rates Made Rich Bastards Pay More Taxes!
  10. Fleeced: The upper 1% earned 19.6% of total income before tax, and paid 41% of the individual federal income tax. “No other major country is so dependent on so few taxpayers”