the top 1% in income pay 39% of income taxes.... [View All]

[CATagious]

Now that I have your attention...

Before I get to my question, I need to preface my post with quick background. I am a career-changer and in school full-time as an accounting major. Fortunately, I am close to being done. Tonight was my second class in Tax and the professor has already pounded into our brains that corporations are over taxed in the US. I've been able to ignore this but tonight he put up on the board the following: (On edit: this data has nothing to do with corporations, he wasn't talking about corprations at this point, just about individuals... I segued clumsily and didn't make that clear)

(these numbers are just guestimations by the prof. he couldn't remember the EXACT figures)
Income level      Share of entire income taxes collected in US
----------------  -------------------------------------------
1% ($450,000+)   39%
10% xxxxxx         xx%
50% xxxxxx         3%


So, he said that the top 1% in income pay 39% of all the income taxes collected. There were audible gasps thru the room and I even heard murmurs of 'that's really high'. Of course he went on to preach that the rich already pay an onerous amount of tax as is demonstrated by this data.

But, I was sitting there thinking that this comparison is irrelevant and misleading. I mean, wouldn't it make more sense to compare the percentage of the revenue pie that the top 1% make to the percentage of the tax pie that they pay?

For example: what if the top 1% made 60% of the total revenue of the nation? Then comparing that 60% to the 39% of the total taxes paid seems more relevant and unbiased. I want to argue my point but I think I need real data to support myself and to make sure my thinking is correct.

Am I missing something? If not, anyone know where I can find data on how much the top 1% made collectively?

Thanks!