This article ignores the 15.3% payroll tax that is split into two halves, each supposedly paid by the employer and employee. But in reality this 15.3% is earnings that would have been the employee's if this tax were abolished or folded into a single tax system. In 2016, individual income taxes were $1.55T but payroll taxes were $1.12T, or about 42% of total individual taxes paid. 12.4% of the 15.3% tax is Social Security that ends for wealthy people at about $127,200 in 2017. So by definition nearly 42% of all individual taxes were paid by people earning less.  If you take the total payroll tax collected and divide it by 15.3, you get just 46% of all personal income.  So 54% of personal income escapes the payroll tax paid by the lowest income people, and this includes all non-wage income:  dividends, capital gains, rents, distributions from businesses, etc.  So by splitting individual taxes into "income" and "payroll" all this is hidden.