Parts of the following are excerpted from an article by William McBride, Vice President of Federal Tax Policy. It may surprise you to know that according to the latest IRS data for 2020 the top 1 percent of taxpayers (about 1.6 million filers who earn more than $548,336) paid $723 billion in income taxes, or 42.3 percent of all income taxes paid—a larger share than the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined.
The top 5 percent of taxpayers (about 7.9 million filers that earn more than $220,521) paid in aggregate $1.1 trillion in income taxes, amounting to 62.7 percent of all income taxes paid that year.
I couldn't find more recent data but economists think the tax paid by the highest earners is even greater since 2020. According to White:
High income taxpayers also pay the highest tax rates, according to the IRS. The average income tax rate in 2020 was 13.6 percent.
The top 5 percent of taxpayers paid a 22.4 percent average rate while the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 26.0 percent average rate—more than eight times higher than the 3.1 percent average rate paid by the bottom half of taxpayers.
The top 0.001 percent, or the richest 1,575 tax returns filed in 2020, paid nearly $71 billion in income taxes and had an average tax rate of 23.7 percent.
