Who Pays the Most in Taxes and Why

When it comes to paying taxes, there is a specific rate that a person must pay depending on how much they earn. The top 1% of earners pay a rate of 38.5% in taxes. The bottom 50% gets the lowest amount of taxes to pay at just 3.1%. When you break it down though, the top 1% of earners pay 43% of all income tax. The issue with this is that the top 0.01% only have to pay 22% of the income tax.

Key Takeaways:

The top 1% pays the most taxes at a rate of 38.5% while the lowest rate is just 3.1% for the bottom 50%.
Households in the top 20% make about 150,000% more than others but they only pay 87% of the income tax.
The average earner in the top 0.1% makes over 26 million dollars and are the richest in the nation.

“Conversely, when you look at the lower tier of income earners, people making up to $48,000 a year actually pay net negative income tax. They get money back.”