Federal income taxes were due on Tuesday, and that is the day we found this nugget on the IRS website: federal income taxes paid as a percentage of income for the 2009 tax year, broken down by income categories. (The report was released last fall.) Given recent rhetoric, it is worth reading.

Here are the figures, with income range listed first, then the total federal income taxes paid as a percentage of income:

$1-$10,000: 0.4

$10,000-$20,000: 0.9

$20,000 - $30,000: 2.5

$30,000 - $50,000: 4.6

$50,000 - $100,000: 7.4

$100,000- $200,000: 11.8

$200,000 - $500,000: 19.5

$500,000 - $1,000,000: 24.2

$1,000,000 - $1,500,000: 25.2

$1,500,000 - $2,000,000: 25.5

$2,000,000 - $5,000,000: 25.7

$5,000,000 - $10,000,000: 25.2

$10,000,000 and above: 22.4

As you can see, the rich and super-rich pay a far higher percentage of their income in taxes than the lower and middle classes do. On average, people who earn more than $500,000 a year pay more than three times the percentage that people earning less than $100,000 a year pay.

When looking at all federal taxes paid, the richest 20 percent of Americans paid 68.9 percent of them. The richest 1 percent paid 28.1 percent. Despite recent rhetoric from the President, the rich shoulder a much larger share of the federal tax burden than everyone else.