Every quarter, the Statistics of Income Division of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) publishes financial statistics obtained from tax and information returns that have been filed with the federal government. Recently published reports reflect data gleaned from 2014 individual federal income tax returns. These reports offer a snapshot of how the U.S. population breaks down as taxpayers.
The big picture
For tax year 2014, U.S. taxpayers filed roughly 139.6 million individual income tax returns.1 Total adjusted gross income reported on these tax returns was $9.71 trillion, resulting in a total income tax of $1.37 trillion. That works out to an overall average tax rate of 14.16% for all returns filed — the highest total average rate in the 10-year period represented by the statistical report.
If your 2014 AGI was $38,173 or more, you were in the top 50% of all federal income tax filers based on AGI. This group accounted for 88.7% of all AGI reported and paid 97.3% of total federal income tax for the year.
A look at the top
How much AGI did it take to make the top 10% of all individual filers? Probably not as much as you might think. If your AGI was $133,445 or greater, you would have been one of the almost 14 million filers making up the top 10%. This group reported about $4.58 trillion in AGI (more than 47% of all AGI reported) and accounted for about 70.9% of total individual income tax for the year.
To make the top 5%, you would have needed $188,996 or more in AGI. You would have been among approximately 7 million filers who reported almost $3.5 trillion in total AGI and accounted for about 60% of total income taxes paid.
It’s also worth noting that the top 3% of all 2014 individual income tax returns based on AGI accounted for 52.9% of total income tax paid for the year.
The very, very top
For the 2014 tax year, 1.4 million returns had an AGI of $465,626 or more. These taxpayers make up the top 1% of filers, reporting almost $2 trillion in total AGI and responsible for just under a 40% share of the total tax haul.
The 1,396 income tax returns that showed $56,981,718 or more in AGI make up the top 0.001% (that’s the top one-thousandth of 1%) of 2014 filers. These filers together reported over $207 billion in AGI and paid over 3.6% of taxes.
Not all high-income returns showed tax
Of the 6.2 million income tax returns filed for 2014 with an AGI of $200,000 or more, 10,905 showed no U.S. income tax liability (the number drops to 3,927 if you eliminate returns filed by individuals who were responsible for income taxes to foreign governments and had no U.S. income tax because of a credit for such taxes paid).
Why did these high-income returns show no U.S. tax liability? The IRS report noted that these returns show no tax for a variety of reasons, including tax credits and deductions, most notably miscellaneous deductions and deductions for charitable contributions, medical and dental expenses, and investment interest expenses. A significant secondary factor was the deduction for taxes paid.
Average tax rates
Dividing total tax paid by total AGI yields the following average federal income tax rates for the 2014 tax year:
| Top Filers (by Percentile) | AGI Threshold | Average Tax Rate |
| 0.001% | $56,981,718 | 24.01% |
| 0.01% | $11,407,987 | 25.92% |
| 0.1% | $2,136,762 | 27.67% |
| 1% | $465,626 | 27.16% |
| 5% | $188,996 | 23.61% |
| 10% | $133,445 | 21.25% |
| 20% | $90,606 | 18.64% |
| 30% | $66,868 | 17.19% |
| 40% | $50,083 | 16.24% |
| 50% | $38,173 | 15.52% |
1Excludes returns filed by dependents; based on final estimates for tax year 2014 reported in Spring 2017 Statistics of Income Bulletin
Sources for data: IRS Statistics of Income Bulletins, Spring 2017 and Summer 2017, Washington, D.C., irs.gov/statistics
What is adjusted gross income (AGI)?
Adjusted gross income, or AGI, is basically total income less adjustments for certain items, such as deductible contributions made to an IRA, alimony paid, and qualified student loan interest paid.