Today’s political climate there is a lot of debate about who should pay how much. Administration wants to impose greater taxes on the “rich”. Well, who are the rich and how much do they pay? Everyone has their own definition. Here are some facts:

globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com

First of all, what is the top 1%? In the United States to be considered among the top 1% of households based on your annual income you need to make $506,552. To move into the top ½ of 1% you need to have a household income of $815,868 per year. And to get all the way to the top 1/10 of 1% you need to make slightly over $2 million per year.

About 1.2 million households qualify as being in the top 1%. That top 1% earns 20% of all pre-tax income and they pay 28% of all total tax revenue including almost 40% of individual income taxes, according to a congressional budget office analysis of 2007 tax data.