A few weeks ago, the Internal Revenue Service released data on tax year 2003. They show the top 1 percent of taxpayers, ranked by adjusted gross income, paid 34.3 percent of all federal income taxes that year. The top 5 percent paid 54.4 percent, the top 10 percent paid 65.8 percent, and the top quarter of taxpayers paid 83.9 percent.
Not only are these data interesting on their own, but looking at them over time shows the share of total income taxes paid by the wealthy rose even as statutory tax rates fell sharply. Growing international data show the same trend.
