Go to the following URL to get these stats directly from the IRS stats:
SOI Tax Stats - Individual Statistical Tables by Tax Rate and Income Percentile
Then go to just below the middle of the page and you will find an Excel chart entitled: Number of Returns, Shares of AGI and Total Income Tax, AGI Floor on Percentiles in Current and Constant Dollars, and Average Tax Rates. This spreadsheet has the precise stats I used regarding your inquiry.
For example and directly from this table : The total number of top 1% taxpayers in 2008 = 1,399,606 taxpayers, Total Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) for the top 1% = $1,685,472,000,000, and the total income tax liability after deducting their tax credits = $392,149,000,000. Simply divide the total AGI and the total Tax Liability after tax credit by the number of tax returns and you get the following average per tax return (i.e., per capita top 1% taxpayer): per capita - AGI = $1,204,247, Tax Liability = $280,185. Then subtract the Tax Liability from the AGI and you get $924,062 AGI left over after the average top 1% taxpayer pays his Federal Income Tax: $924,602 = $1,204,247 - $280,185. The number I used was $923,000 as I rounded down more in my initial post and I do that so that my representations are always a tad lower so that the right wing cannot ever use their dishonest commonly used ruse that I overstate things.
Keep in mind that these stats actually probably understate the actual income of the wealthy as both the right and left wing have acknowledged that taxable income for the upper income taxpayers is under reported due to tax evasion and abuse of certain tax avoidances.
With regard to whether or not it is credible to structure the tax code to preclude the $1.3 trillion deficit in the same year, it can be, certainly, and there is enough money to accomplish that. As a practical matter, it would be a bad idea to do it all at once because of the shock to do so, so swiftly. It is much more effective to do things gradually as it gives entities time to restructure and plan accordingly, and gradual application would be better able to preserve productive resources, a shock would be disruptive and actually damaging to resources. Mexico, for example, constantly makes that mistake.
In my view, the real problem is the bias in our economic system that allows the wealthy to take the lion’s share of the nation’s wealth created by the hands and minds of the working class (technically the bottom 96% of the people in the USA, and more severely the bottom 85%! There are a lot of stupid right wingers in that group that have been duped into voting against their own best interest).
I absolutely believe in a market economy, but an economy that is not so biased in favor of the top, which is to say that the majority of Americans are getting screwed big time. With the proper regulation, we could have a great economy that equitably rewards its people while providing all the compensation incentives necessary for a people to invent, to be efficient, to be entrepreneurial, to grow, and to achieve great things. Such an economy would put more money in the hands of the consuming public and demand would always be great. Consumer demand is the economic ingredient that truly drives an economy that thrives, and fixing the current inequitable bias in our economy would result in enabling the working class to rightfully, equitably, logically, and morally keep more of the money and wealth and purchasing power that only the working class creates with their energy and work with their own hands and minds.
With regard to whether I am for taxation on consumption versus on income, that’s an easy one for me to answer. I can beat up Boedicca all day on that one. The straight answer is: tax the income. Always tax the income only tax the income, and tax the wealth only as it may be necessary (as it is now since there is such a gross bias in our economic system that has enable the few to own such a lopsided proportion of wealth). A flat income tax would absolutely be ruinous to our country, taxing only consumption would be even worse. The majority of the right wing working class have been duped into believing and supporting such massively regressive approaches that would bring massive windfalls to the wealthy few and absolutely make the concentration of wealth and income at the top even worse than it is. There is so much proof of this that it isn’t even funny.
