Income taxes paid by the rich

So I was on the Internal Revenue Service Web site looking for something else, and I found some tables giving information about the top 400 adjusted gross incomes in the United States. If I read the tables right, here are some nuggets from that data:

In 1992, the returns covering the top 400 incomes had total income of about $18.7 billion. That's in the neighborhood of $47 million income per return on average. In 2000, the top 400 returns totaled $69.6 billion in income, or $174 million per return on average.

The top 400 returns in 1992 accounted for .52 of 1 percent of the total personal income in the United States that year. In 2000, they accounted for 1.09 percent.

What about income tax paid? In 1992, the top 400 returns paid $4.9 billion in taxes, producing an average tax rateof 26.38 percent. In 2000, they paid $15.5 billion in taxes for a rate of 22.29 percent.

In 1992, the top 400 paid 1.04 percent of all personal income taxes. In 2000, they paid 1.58 percent.