That's an interesting point. It does also normalize a little for differing costs of living, although not home values which are probably the biggest component for a place like NYC or SF.
No, you move to Monte Carlo where there is no income tax. Reminded me of Borg moving from Sweden to Monte Carlo.
If you want to live in Monte Carlo. I'm much happier to have enough money to live where I want to live for no other reason than that I want to live there. That's freedom to me and the only point of money in the >$5M range; having to base the choice of something as fundamental as where I live in any way on tax rates is the worst kind of slavery in my book.
How this kind of data could be possibly collected? As far as I know people's net worth is not a public information in US.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scfindex.htm This survey is conducted once in 3 years. Last time it was done was in 2016. When 2019 survey comes out, expect biggest disparity between top and bottom group. Good thing about the survey, they also follow up same participants for the next survey and track their progression
I have to agree with you actually. Financial freedom let us live where we want without regard to cost. Some of us chose to live in California and have to pay the highest state income tax rate in the US (marginal of 13%) rather than calling Nevada home.
To be fair, the common critique of this survey is that self-reported net worth tends to be higher. I recall someone estimating it to be as much as 2x inflated. For comparison (an imperfect one, since they count liquid net worth only), there are a few PWM recent studies that gave a number of millionaire households at just over 6 million. I think it was a 2017 CS study that said that there are 1.2 million households with LNW of 5 million or more, which would make them just about at 1%.
I've asked myself the same question and one always wonders where Forbes gets it data and how accurate it is. Think of what is publically available. 1. Rule 144 filings if ownership of a public company is involved. 2. Property tax records and in most states the filings of trusts that may hold the property. 3. If the government asses the tax they have 1099s 4. Public auctions 5. Plane, boat and car registrations. 6. Litigation discovery (this actually shocked me when I heard it was a wealth source data point) 7. ERISA Filings Still a lot of noise in the data - but where is most of the wealth in the US. Stocks, bonds, real estate, jewelry, and art. For the moment I'll assume rare cars, firearms and watches fall into jewelry and art There have been a handful of public complaints against Forbes, but I think you'll find they net out over/under. Plus if you pass a tax you create a reporting requirement. Does regulatory arbitrage then occur - do you scoot your wealth out?
Just for S and G. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/07/forbes-there-are-a-record-2208-billionaires-in-the-world.html