A humorous way to express the same idea is that the non-rich are actually sponging off the rich:

"The average American household of 2.64 people receives almost $13,000 worth of federal benefits, services, and protection per annum. These people would have to have a family income of $53,700 to pay as much in taxes as they get in goodies... Only 4.8 percent of the population -- 12,228,000 people -- file income tax returns showing more than $50,000 in adjusted gross income. Ninety-five percent of Americans are on the mooch." -- P. J. O'Rourke [1]

[1] https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1555847153

The chart depicted in xkcd https://xkcd.com/980/ doesn't seem to agree with this.

http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-inco... Shows the top 50% paying nearly all the taxes. That is a far cry from the rich.

The data you link to shows that the top 5% income people pay 58.55% of all taxes, while the the top 50% pay 97.22%, as you indicated.

So as a simple-language summary we might all agree that the rich pay a majority of the taxes, while the richer half of the country pays nearly all the taxes.

The richer half of the country _own_ 97.5% of the wealth. ( http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-in... ). It is hard to not pay nearly all of the taxes in that situation.

Note that the "richer half" starts at the median income. For the US, the median income is about $52k. That isn't particularly wealthy. When the bar for "nearly all the wealth" is set at that point, it is not surprising at all.

Just 'wealth' take into account the value of the commons? Or just private resources?