Share relative to who? Or what? Tax burden at the median level (again, individual, family, or household) varies sharply depending on filing status and the number of dependents. A couple with kids at median household or family income pays little income tax. For a given family structure and income level, it's easy to figure tax burden.
IRS data is in terms of filing units. A unit could be individual, head of household (usually single parent), married filing single, or married couple. Robert Naiman wrote:
Does anyone know or know how to quickly find a rough answer to the following question: If you make the median income in the United States, what's your relative share of the federal income tax burden? I ask because of the following important poll result... The Program in International Policy Attitudes at the U of Maryland recently did a poll of OECD countries asking if people were willing to pony up the money the UN says is necessary to meet the UN MDG of halving world poverty. In every OECD country, the majority said yes, usually by a wide margin. In the US it was 3/4. PIPA took the money the UN says is necessary and divided it up among the OECD countries according to share of GDP (a standard thing to do.) Then, in each country, they divided by the adult population, getting e.g. $56/year for the US. So, reading the result, I wondered how much the PIPA number overstated the median person's contribution, given that the median person has a less than average share of the federal income tax burden. Here is the PIPA poll: http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_page/554.php?nid=&id=&pnt=554&lb= This poll is particularly germane at the moment given Biden's comment at the VP debate that Obama/Biden would slow down the US commitment to increase foreign aid as a result of the Wall Street bailout.
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