At least for doctors, I would think that the average annual income is somewhere around $300,000-400,000 (and that may be too high). This group would, all-in, be taxed somewhere between 50-60% including medicare, Social Security, etc., no where near the 73% imposed on any dollar made past $10,000,000. There may be a handful of doctors in the world pushing the $10,000,000 barrier. I assume that the landscape is similar for lawyers and managers, and that people tend to focus on those making huge money to generalize the whole field.