You're making your point with the wrong table. That table doesn't include effective tax rates (which won't sum to 100%). You want this table: http://taxfoundat

You're making your point with the wrong table. That table doesn't include effective tax rates (which won't sum to 100%). You want this table: http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-individual-income-tax-data-0#table8 http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-indi... Even so, using AGI is misleading because the "A" means adjustments have already been removed. The more meaningful debate is actually around total (federal + state + local) effective tax rates measured against gross income.