About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1 Scott A. Hodge, Who Are America's Millionaires 1 (2012)

handle is hein.taxfoundation/ffdbhxz0001 and id is 1 raw text is: FOUNDATION June 15, 2012 No. 317 Who Are America's Millionaires? By Scott A. Hodge There is a serious ongoing political debate over the tax rates paid by millionaires. Some say the tax rates paid by wealthy Americans are not progressive enough while others argue that the top rate should be lowered while overhauling the tax code. Neither side of this debate, however, has made any attempt to provide a basic profile of who these taxpayers are. How old are they? What is their marital status? What is their education level? What are their sources of income? In other words, put a demographic face on millionaire taxpayers.1 According to the latest data from the IRS for 2010, there were roughly 268,000 tax returns reporting more than $1 million in adjusted gross income (AGI), a slight increase above 2009 levels. As Chart 1 indicates, however, 2009 had the fewest number of millionaire returns since 2004. Indeed, there were 40 percent fewer millionaire tax returns filed in 2009 than were filed in 2007. When we look beyond these sterile financial statistics we learn that these taxpayers are typically married (and most of them are two-earner couples), they are highly educated, many are business owners, and nearly half are over the age of 55. And while the political discourse frequently treats millionaires as monolithic, the data indicates that millionaire status appears to be fleeting or episodic. People rarely report million-dollar incomes consistently year after year because many of them become CCmillionaires as the result of a one- time event such as the sale of a Chart I:The Number of Millionaire Tax Returns Fluctuates Considerably from Year toYear 450,000 400,000 350,000 300,000 250,000 200,000 150,000 100,000 50,000 0 Source: IRS/Tax Foundation 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Tax Year (preliminary) 1 Although there are many definitions of millionaires, here we are referring to tax returns with adjusted gross incomes $1 million and above. 0 S ,.C -

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most