Just dove into some tax data and it's wild how concentrated the burden really is. Looked at IRS stats on the percentage of taxes paid by income across all 50 states, and honestly the numbers are eye-opening. The top 1% is basically carrying the tax system in some places.

Wyoming tops the list with the top earners paying 54.7% of all federal income taxes there - that's about $2.5 billion from just 2,611 returns. Florida and Nevada aren't far behind at 53.6% and 51.1%. But here's what surprised me: California doesn't even crack the top 10 for tax share percentage, even though the top 1% there pays $122 billion in absolute terms. Turns out when you have that many high earners, the percentage of taxes paid by income level gets spread thinner.

The real concentration is in four states - California, Florida, Texas, and New York each see over $50 billion from their top 1%. Looking at these patterns, the income-based tax share really varies wildly depending on state wealth distribution and population. Some smaller states have way higher percentages because fewer ultra-wealthy people dominate the tax base.