[Quote/]No, but you also have to take into account how much they already pay. In 2005 (latest year I found numbers for), the top 1% of taxpayers paid over 39% of the personal income taxes that year. [Quote/]

No need to hash out the fairness of the tax codes here but I think two things need to be said:

1) Comparing income taxes alone between income groups doesn't fairly represent the relative burdens. The tax code grants many exemptions and ways of offsetting income into less taxable categories. As the incomes increase and the numbers become more impressive it becomes increasingly profitable to employ tax specialists to shield income.

A game played by a roommate years ago was that he had a relatively low official income but a lot of perquisites. These then were listed as expenses but low balled to keep the dollar amount of benefits down. Housing, car, boat and use of an airplane were all done this way. He lived like a king slumming it and paid less total tax than I did working a dollar over minimum wage and paying payroll taxes. The difference made possible by tax laws that favor the rich, while allowing them to claim 'they pay more' and his families accountant. He would laugh and joke about how well he lived off 'nothing' and owned nothing.

2) People needing rescue from wilderness areas and far offshore tend to be from the higher end of the income curve. People working minimum wage jobs don't generally tend to climb distant mountains, camp in the deep wilderness or go very far offshore. Their recreation tends to be more urban.