Facts on Income Tax Payers

I found this article from Kiplinger's fascinating. It's on taxes and who pays what. here are the parts I found especially interesting:

• New data show that an income of $30,881 or more puts you in the top half of the class. Earning about twice that much -- $62,068 -- earns you a spot among the top 25% of all wage earners. You crack the elite top 10% if you earn more than $103,912.

• And $364,657 buys top bragging rights: Earn that much or more and you're among the top 1% of all American earners. Together, the top 1% earn a full 21% of the income reported to the IRS -- far more than the 13% of total income reported by the bottom 50% of earners.

• Here's another powerful statistic about the top 1% of earners: They pay a whopping 39% of all federal income taxes. The bottom 50% pay just 3% of all income taxes.

A few thoughts here:

1. Wow, $31k puts you in the top half of all earners? Yikes! There are a boatload of people not making very much -- even when you factor out students and those living on Social Security.

2. Earning $100k puts you in a pretty good position still. I remember when a "six-figure-income" was what everyone strived for but I thought it had lost a bit of its glamour just like becoming a millionaire has. It probably has lost a bit of ground, but still, it puts you in the top 10% -- not bad. (And, by the way, being a millionaire, while more common, also puts you among the elite in terms of net worth.)

3. The bottom 50% only earn 13% of the total income. Seems like the gap between rich and poor is growing.

4. 50% of the population lives in the U.S. and gets all the government services for free basically (yeah, they kick in 3% so they do pay some.) That is simply astounding to me -- half of all people pay virtually no taxes whatsoever. I'm starting to see why some people say they don't give because they "give" to help others in the form of taxes. (No, I don't buy this argument, but I can see where it's coming from when looking at these numbers.)