I previously blogged the Wall Street Journal’s editorial, Their Fair Share:

Washington is teeing up "the rich" for a big tax hike next year, as a way to make them "pay their fair share." Well, the latest IRS data have arrived on who paid what share of income taxes in 2006, and it’s going to be hard for the rich to pay any more than they already do. The data show that the 2003 Bush tax cuts caused what may be the biggest increase in tax payments by the rich in American history.

The nearby chart shows that the top 1% of taxpayers, those who earn above $388,806, paid 40% of all income taxes in 2006, the highest share in at least 40 years.

Citizens for Tax Justice responds to the editorial in Right-Wing Spin Machine Uses Misleading Figures to Argue that the Tax Code Is More Progressive Under Bush

The Journal uses the IRS figures to create the impression that the poorer half of Americans are contributing almost nothing to federal revenue while the wealthy are providing the bulk of it. …

Do the rich pay too much in taxes? Has the tax code become even more progressive as a result of the Bush tax cuts? Of course not. The share of taxes paid by the rich looks large and growing only because the Wall Street Journal ignores the tax that affects the poor and middle-class most heavily — the payroll tax.

The nearby table combines both the federal income tax and the federal payroll tax into the total amount of federal taxes paid by each income group in 2007.