In a recent post, I cited some statistics on this year’s distribution of the income tax: “the richest 1% of tax filers [will pay] more than 40% of the income tax burden. The top 50% will account for 97% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% [will pay] just 3%.”

In response, I commented, “Every time I hear someone claim that ‘the rich’ aren’t paying their ‘fair share,’ I wonder, how much tax would ‘the rich’ have to pay before it becomes fair?”

Steve W. e-mailed me with a good question:

What percentage of the total income earned goes to that top 1% of filers that are paying 40% of the income tax burden? If it is something like 37% of the total income, and they are paying 40% of the total income taxes, that doesn’t seem overly atrocious, but if they are down around 15% of the total income, that seems like a far bigger problem to me.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal supplied the answer:

The nearby chart shows that the top 1% of taxpayers, those who earn above $388,806, paid 40% of all income taxes in 2006, the highest share in at least 40 years. The top 10% in income, those earning more than $108,904, paid 71%. [...] Americans with an income below the median paid a record low 2.9% of all income taxes, while the top 50% paid 97.1%. [...]

Aha, we are told: The rich paid more taxes because they made a greater share of the money. That is true. The top 1% earned 22% of all reported income. But they also paid a share of taxes not far from double their share of income. In other words, the tax code is already steeply progressive.

In other words, the top 1% earned 22% of the nation’s income, but paid 40% of the nation’s income tax. That’s a pretty steep disparity.

So, the question remains: if the rich aren’t paying their fair share even under this lopsided scenario, how much tax would “the rich” have to pay before it becomes fair?