Who pays taxes in the United States?
Individual Returns Stats
• Top 1-percent adjusted gross income (AGI) break (TY 2009) $343,927 and above with 36.73% of the total taxes paid
• Top 5-percent AGI break (TY 2009) $154,643 and above with 58.66% of the total taxes paid
• Top 10-percent AGI break (TY 2009) $112,124 and above with 70.47% of the total taxes paid
• Median AGI (TY 2009) $32,396
• Bottom 50-percent had an average tax rate of 1.85% and paid 2.25% of the total taxes paid.
• The top 50-percent of all tax payers paid 97.75% of the total taxes paid, these people and families made $32,396 and above.
It is estimates that this year those earning over $1 million will pay, on average, 29.1 percent on federal taxes. Taxpayers earning between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay 15 percent.
In 2009, 1,470 people with incomes over $1 million a year paid absolutely no taxes. But they represent less than 1 percent of those earning over $1 million a year. Raising their taxes may be the fair thing to do, but it would not bring in enough revenue to close the deficit.
There were 236,883 taxpayers who earned more than $1 million in 2009. That’s less than two-tenths of one percent of all filers.
The Top 400 tax filers – the wealthiest of the wealthy Americans – do pay a lower rate of just 18.11 percent of their total income. Why you ask? Many of them are hedge fund managers and people like Warren Buffet — their income is pegged how much their investment fund grows. This income is counted as so-called “carried interest” (even though it is not interest at all; it’s more like a performance bonus) and is taxed at the lower 15 percent capital gains rate. You can thank Congress for that one.
It’s a loophole for hedge managers, pure and simple. But while it may be an outrage that these uber-filty-rich hedge fund managers pay such a low rate compared to the rest of us, there are just not many of them out there. For sheer numbers of low tax payers look at the bottom 50%.
The top 400 US tax filers represent a tiny sliver – just .00028 percent of all filers. The majority of those who’s earning exceed $1 million a year pay at a higher rate, which is why the average tax rate for this group, according to the Tax Foundation, is 29.1 percent of taxable income.