America's Top 1% Pay 26% in Tax On Average 💼

Key Takeaways

• Americans paid 14.5% on average in income tax in 2022, based on the latest available data from the IRS.
• For the top 1% of U.S. earners, the average income tax rate was 26.1%.
• Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of earners paid 3.7% on average in income tax. However, this figure does not include payroll taxes, which makes up a larger share of paid taxes compared to other income groups.

Breaking Down Income Tax by Wealth Tier

The top 1% in America represents roughly 1.5 million taxpayers, with a minimum income of $663,164 in 2022.

Overall, the average income tax rate was higher than all other wealth brackets, at 26.1%. Following next in line were those between the top 1% and 5%, who paid 18.8% on average in income tax.

Altogether, the top 5% paid $1.3 trillion in income taxes, accounting for 61% of the federal total.