Individual Income Tax
Tax assessed on taxable income reported by individuals and households.
Revenue → government → spending → institutions
Tax Dollars
See where public money comes from, where it goes, and which institutions receive it—without confusing federal receipts, household tax burdens, and federal spending.
Federal revenue
What Funds the Federal Government?
Net receipts by source from the U.S. Treasury’s final September Monthly Treasury Statement. Fiscal-year receipts are not the same dataset or unit as IRS tax returns or CBO households.
Final Monthly Treasury Statement · FY2025
Individual income taxes50.7%
Social insurance and retirement receipts33.4%
Corporate income taxes8.6%
Customs duties3.7%
Excise taxes2.0%
Miscellaneous receipts0.9%
Estate and gift taxes0.6%
Shares are calculated from the displayed net-receipt categories and may differ slightly from published totals because of classification and rounding. Inspect Treasury source ↗
Payroll Taxes
Taxes associated largely with Social Security and Medicare financing, typically collected through payroll.
Corporate Income Tax
Federal income tax imposed on taxable corporate profits. Who remits it and who bears its economic burden are different questions.
Excise Taxes
Taxes imposed on specific goods, services, or activities.
Customs Duties
Taxes collected on certain imported goods.
Estate and Gift Taxes
Federal taxes associated with certain transfers of wealth.
Keep the questions separate
These Numbers Answer Different Questions
Tax Bracket
The statutory rate applied to a portion of taxable income—not the rate paid on all income.
Average or Effective Tax Rate
Taxes divided by a defined measure of income. CBO’s denominator and population are explicitly labeled.
Share of Taxes Paid
The percentage of a particular tax total attributable to a group. IRS data below concern federal individual income tax, not all taxes.
Who Pays Federal Individual Income Tax?
IRS Statistics of Income measures tax returns grouped by adjusted gross income (AGI). It does not measure every federal tax or CBO’s household income concept.
Top 0.001%
3.5%Share of federal individual income tax
Share of reported AGI2.1%
Average income-tax rate23.6%
Top 0.01%
8.5%Share of federal individual income tax
Share of reported AGI4.7%
Average income-tax rate25.2%
Top 0.1%
19.0%Share of federal individual income tax
Share of reported AGI10.1%
Average income-tax rate26.7%
Top 1%
38.4%Share of federal individual income tax
Share of reported AGI20.6%
Average income-tax rate26.3%
Top 2%
46.6%Share of federal individual income tax
Share of reported AGI26.1%
Average income-tax rate25.2%
Top 3%
51.9%Share of federal individual income tax
Share of reported AGI30.2%
Average income-tax rate24.3%
Top 4%
56.0%Share of federal individual income tax
Share of reported AGI33.5%
Average income-tax rate23.6%
Top 5%
59.3%Share of federal individual income tax
Share of reported AGI36.4%
Average income-tax rate23.0%
Top 10%
70.5%Share of federal individual income tax
Share of reported AGI47.6%
Average income-tax rate20.9%
Top 20%
82.6%Share of federal individual income tax
Share of reported AGI62.8%
Average income-tax rate18.6%
Top 25%
86.3%Share of federal individual income tax
Share of reported AGI68.5%
Average income-tax rate17.8%
Top 30%
89.4%Share of federal individual income tax
Share of reported AGI73.5%
Average income-tax rate17.2%
Top 40%
93.9%Share of federal individual income tax
Share of reported AGI81.5%
Average income-tax rate16.3%
Top 50%
96.7%Share of federal individual income tax
Share of reported AGI87.7%
Average income-tax rate15.6%
All returns
100.0%Share of federal individual income tax
Share of reported AGI100.0%
Average income-tax rate14.1%
What Share of Household Income Goes to Federal Taxes?
CBO estimates average federal tax rates for households using income before transfers and taxes. This is an effective-rate analysis, not a marginal tax-bracket chart.
CBO import pending.
The schema is ready for CBO’s latest supplemental household-distribution workbook. Household rates remain blank until official rows are imported.
Federal obligations
Where Does the Money Go?
Paper Trail currently follows obligations—legal commitments to spend—through contracts, grants, direct payments, loans, and other assistance. Obligations are not necessarily cash outlays, and these figures are not added to tax or workforce-benefit estimates.
Contracts
Procurement commitments for goods and services.
Grants
Financial assistance awards that generally do not purchase goods for the government.
Direct Payments
Payments classified by USAspending as direct assistance.
Loans
Federal lending and loan-guarantee activity, labeled according to the source measure.
Other Assistance
Other supported federal assistance award categories.
Who Receives Public Money?
Published organization profiles ranked by their currently recorded federal-obligation period.
Lockheed Martin$62.1B
Defense & Aerospace · Open public-money profile →
Boeing Defense$29.8B
Defense & Aerospace · Open public-money profile →
UnitedHealth Group$24.6B
Healthcare · Open public-money profile →
RTX Corporation$24.1B
Defense & Aerospace · Open public-money profile →
Northrop Grumman$12.8B
Defense & Aerospace · Open public-money profile →
McKesson$12.3B
Healthcare · Open public-money profile →
General Dynamics$10.6B
Defense & Aerospace · Open public-money profile →
Leidos$9.2B
Consulting & Government Services · Open public-money profile →
Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII)$8.8B
Defense & Aerospace · Open public-money profile →
Fluor Corporation$8B
Engineering & Infrastructure · Open public-money profile →
Which Agencies Spend It?
Agency totals and award-type breakdowns from the existing USAspending dashboards.
Department of Health & Human Services (HHS)$2.1T
Social Security Administration$1.6T
Department of Defense (DoD)$427.2B
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)$296.3B
Department of Agriculture (USDA)$156.6B
Department of Transportation$116.7B
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)$102.1B
Department of Education$90B
Explanatory flow—not literal dollar tracing
Follow a Tax Dollar
Federal Receipts
→
Federal Agency
→
Award or Program
→
Recipient Organization
Accounting records do not trace one person’s tax payment into one contract. This pathway instead explains how aggregate federal revenue supports government activity and lets readers continue from recipients into corporate families, lobbying, PACs, politicians, committees, legislation, and revolving-door records.
Continue Through Paper Trail →Workforce & Public Benefits
This emerging collection will publish employer-level Medicaid, SNAP, or related estimates only when a government or transparent research source supports them. It is methodologically separate from direct payments to an employer.
No employer estimates published yet
The database stores study year, geography, household coverage, limitations, estimates, and source URLs before publication.
Deterministic findings
What Stands Out
Largest Federal Receipt Source
Individual income taxes supplied 50.7% of the receipt categories shown for FY2025.
Treasury period and source ↗Largest Tracked Recipient
Lockheed Martin currently has the largest obligation total among published Paper Trail organization profiles for its labeled coverage period.
Inspect period, categories, and sources →Scope, Freshness & Methodology
Paper Trail’s initial Tax Dollars coverage is federal. It does not mix state income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, or local taxes into these charts. Treasury fiscal years, IRS tax years, CBO calendar-year household estimates, and USAspending coverage periods update independently and are labeled separately.