What share of federal income tax revenue do the top 0.01% pay?

1. Why the top 0.01% is hard to pin down in existing public reporting

The top 0.01% refers to a tiny slice of taxpayers and analysts measure its contribution either as a share of total income, as an effective tax rate, or as a share of taxes paid; the Joint Committee on Taxation and researchers often publish tax-rate estimates for that group (for example, debate over a 34 percent “overall federal tax rate” used in one JCT-oriented pamphlet) but those analyses do not automatically translate into a single, agreed‑upon share of total income-tax revenue without additional denominators and assumptions ^[3].

2. What the provided sources do report about high earners’ tax burden

The sources establish a clear, repeatable pattern: the very top of the income distribution pays a disproportionate share of individual income-tax revenue—IRS-derived summaries and advocacy groups report that the top 1% pay roughly 40.4% of individual federal income taxes in recent data, and the top half of earners account for about 97% of those receipts—figures that are repeatedly used by both policy shops and commentators to frame debates about progressivity and fairness ^{[1] [2]}.

3. Rate-versus-share confusion fuels contradictory headlines

Analysts disagree because “tax share” (what fraction of total income-tax receipts a group pays) and “tax rate” (what percent of their income the group pays) are distinct concepts and can point in different directions; for example, the JCT’s special methodology produced a headline “34 percent” overall federal tax rate for the top 0.01% in one context, while other researchers find lower or higher rates depending on whether they include realized and unrealized capital gains, estate and gift taxes, or state taxes—illustrating why a precise share of receipts for the top 0.01% is not trivial to compute and is sensitive to definitional choices ^[3].

4. The methodological question the public rarely sees

Calculating a share for the top 0.01% requires choosing which receipts to include (just individual income taxes, or all federal revenues), which year to average, and whether to use tax-unit income or broader measures of economic income—choices that each tilt the result; those methodological levers explain why think tanks and policy shops publish different numbers and why the supplied sources focus more on the top 1% or on rates rather than on a single top‑0.01% share ^{[3] [4]}.

5. What reporting bias and source agendas contribute

Different outlets and research centers stress different metrics to support policy narratives: tax‑cut proponents highlight effective-rate declines and the high absolute amounts paid by top earners to argue against higher rates, while progressive analysts emphasize concentration of income and potential loopholes to argue for higher levies on the very wealthy; the supplied sources include advocacy-tinged analyses and neutral data summaries, so readers must triangulate across those perspectives ^{[4] [1]}.

6. Bottom line and limits of this analysis

Based on the reporting supplied, a direct, sourced answer for “the share of federal income tax revenue paid by the top 0.01%” cannot be produced because none of the provided items publish that exact share; what is well-documented in these sources is that the top 1% pays about 40.4% of federal individual income taxes and that estimates of tax rates at the very top (including for the top 0.01%) vary substantially depending on methodology ^{[1] [3]}.