Students in Massachusetts will get free lunch and breakfast at school thanks to a new 4% tax put on people who earn more than $1 million.

  • Dave
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    511 months ago

    Do you ever get a sense of whether your clients ‘get’ just how disproportionate there income is compared to the median?

    According to this $50 million puts them comfortably in top 1%, receiving median annual US income in just under two hours (if my math is good: (40*52)*(46,001/50000000) = 1.91?).

    • @[email protected]
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      811 months ago

      Yeah it’s really hard to see that in the context of kids literally starving.

      Regarding your question, it’s a mix. I would say many if not most understand they are extremely successful and fortunate. The variance is how out of touch they are. Some are incredibly generous, while others are grumpy or miserable. Some actually want higher taxes, some are Scrooge types.

      I once had an UHNW individual who consistently donated so much to charity that he exceeded deduction limits. I had to research ways to optimize his giving, which was refreshing.

      Then there was a trust fund beneficiary worth at least $100 million, a really nice guy who lived modestly, bought the whole office lunch and dressed casually. Very down to earth. We were in the process of setting up a charity trust for him before I left that firm.

      Other end of the spectrum, I had a paranoid and unstable client who repeatedly pushed us to do unethical and illegal things, making everyone uncomfortable. We fired him even though he was a ~100k/yr client for us. Easy decision.

      All kinds really.