Your point doesn't stand. Read the rest of the data. Namely, notice that according to this data, the median AGI of the United States is $32,396/year.
So half the population is making less than $32k/year. Yes, the top 10% and the top half of the population are taking on almost all of the income-tax burden.... because they (we, in my case) have almost all the income.
There's nothing fair about demanding tax money from people who are just plain poor. You tax the rich, because rich people have money.
Now, we could talk about distributing the tax burden "fairly" across the rich and the middle class, but that assumes we have large, broad middle class. Which we don't: making a "middle-class salary" like, say, $66,193/year already puts you on the border of the top 25% of the country.
And then notice that to get from the top 25% to the top 10%, you have to make almost twice as much money. Top 10% to top 5% isn't that large of an increase, but top 5% to top 1% requires more than doubling your income.
So, to be clear:
To go from median to top 25%, you need to roughly double your income. To go from 75th percentile to 90th percentile, you need to almost double your income. To go from 95th percentile to 99th percentile, you need to more-than-double your income. We're operating a tax system designed for a bell-curve income distribution when what we actually have is a power-law income distribution.
So half the population is making less than $32k/year. Yes, the top 10% and the top half of the population are taking on almost all of the income-tax burden.... because they (we, in my case) have almost all the income.
There's nothing fair about demanding tax money from people who are just plain poor. You tax the rich, because rich people have money.
Now, we could talk about distributing the tax burden "fairly" across the rich and the middle class, but that assumes we have large, broad middle class. Which we don't: making a "middle-class salary" like, say, $66,193/year already puts you on the border of the top 25% of the country.
And then notice that to get from the top 25% to the top 10%, you have to make almost twice as much money. Top 10% to top 5% isn't that large of an increase, but top 5% to top 1% requires more than doubling your income.
So, to be clear:
To go from median to top 25%, you need to roughly double your income. To go from 75th percentile to 90th percentile, you need to almost double your income. To go from 95th percentile to 99th percentile, you need to more-than-double your income. We're operating a tax system designed for a bell-curve income distribution when what we actually have is a power-law income distribution.