The share of federal taxes paid by households in the highest quintile increased from 55 percent in 1979 to 70 percent in 2018. That group’s share of income before transfers and taxes also increased over the period but less than its share of federal taxes. Most of that 15 percentage-point increase in the federal tax share occurred in the top 1 percent of the distribution, whose share of all federal taxes rose by 12 percentage points, from 14 percent in 1979 to 26 percent in 2018. Those households’ share of income before transfers and taxes also rose, although to a lesser extent, from 9 percent in 1979 to 17 percent in 2018.
