Who Pays Federal Income Taxes?

When it comes to paying federal income taxes, it is often misunderstood when tax cuts are granted why the “rich” seem to benefit the most, while the progressives scream that the blue-collar class deserve the most benefit. This is wrong simply because the blue-collar class hardly pay any of these taxes.

The graph below depicts the percentage of taxes paid by each income group (black bar) and the percent of income earned by that same group (gray bar); Source: Tax Foundation.

The two most startling figures are at the high and low ends of the scale. Although the richest taxpayers make 16.1% of the money, they pay 33.7% of the taxes, while those in the bottom 50% make 14.2% of the money but only pay 3.5% of the taxes.