Who pays what share Income Tax in the U.S.?

There is significant debate over U.S. income taxes and who should pay and at what rate.  Any sensible debate should start with facts, and we have found that the Tax Foundation has good facts at  http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html. 

The IRS has released new date on calendar year 2008 individual income taxes, with some key points being:

1. The top .1 of 1% of tax returns (adjusted gross income or AGI over $1,803,585) earned 10% of the nation's adjusted gross income and paid 18.5% of all federal individual inocme taxes with an average income tax rate of 22.7%.
2. The top 1 percent of tax returns (AGI over $380.354) earned 20% of the nation's AGI and paid 38% of all federal individual income taxes and had an average tax rate of 23.3%.
3. The top 5% earning taxpayers (AGI over $159,619) earned 34.7% of the nation's AGI and paid 58.7% of all federal individual income taxes at an average tax rate of 20.7%.  This means the bottom 95% of taxpayers paid 41.3% of all federal individual income taxes.
4. The bottom 50% of tax returns (AGI under $33,048) paid a total of 2.7% of all federal individual income taxes at an average tax rate of 2.6%.

We present this data with no editorial comment.  The goal is merely to inform the reader as to who is paying what share of federal individual income taxes in our country.