The IRS has issued new statistics which show the burden of taxpayers in various wage brackets. The most recent statistics show that the top 1% of all wage earners paid 37.5% of all the federal income taxes the government received for the year 2010. This is the most recent year available. That’s an increase over the 36.3% the top 1% paid on 2009 income taxes.

What is the top 1%? Well, in 2010 your adjusted gross income had to be greater than $369,691 to be considered “the top 1% of earners.”

What is rich? The highest 5% of earners paid 59.1% of the total income tax paid into the U.S. Treasury. You are in the top 5% of earners if your adjusted gross income is at least $161,579. And to round out the top ten, if your adjusted gross income is greater than $116,623, you are then in the top 10% of all earners and, in fact, the top 10% of the country’s income earners paid 70.6% of the total taxes paid by all of us; that is based on 45% of the total adjusted gross income.

The bottom half of the country as far as adjusted gross income goes pays a total of 2.36% of all federal income taxes taken in by IRS. Their average tax rate was 2.4% of their adjusted gross income.

Keep in mind that your actual tax rate is higher because the Internal Revenue Service is basing these percentages on your adjusted gross income, not on your total income