Tax Facts gathered by the Tax Policy Center:

The average tax rate (for payroll combined with income tax )for people earning more than $500,000 is 30.8%.

For those earning $40-50,000 it is 20.7%.

(That includes the employers’ share of payroll taxes.)



And according to the IRS (Oct 2010):


The top 1% of all taxpayers earned 20% of all adjusted gross income and paid 38% of all income taxes at an average tax rate of 23.27%.


The top 5% earned a total of 35% of the total adjusted gross income and paid 59% of all income taxes at an average tax rate of 20.7%.


That does not include payroll taxes.