Millionaire tax filings are pretty rare

Note the difference between folks who have investable assets of over $1 million - millionaires in name only - and folks with annual incomes in the millions. Based on 2009 filings, the IRS says that only 8,274 tax returns listed incomes of more than $10 million - or just over 0.1 percent of more than 140 million tax returns. From Real Time Economics:

More than 97% of tax returns filed in 2009 reported an income of $200,000 or less. And the biggest chunk of returns - about 13% - were from those making between $50,000 and $75,000. Their average tax bill was $4,740. The overall average income of in 2009 was $54,283. That was a drop of 7.7% from the previous year.