Tides of Fortune

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 39, 16 February 1937, Page 6

Tides of Fortune

The tide of millionaires is rising again in the United States. There were forty-one of them with million-dollar incomes in 1935, according to the United States Treasury’s preliminary report on income tax returns, as compared with thirty-three in the previous year. The increase in million-dollar incomes was steady between 1921 and 1929, in which latter year the all-time record high was reached with a total of 513 millionaires in The United States of America, Perhaps some satisfaction can be taken by those Americans who wish to do so from tho information that the 1935 group of forty-one millionaires paid taxes totalling 41,499,000 dollars on a total net income of 73,630,000 dollars. Now from this dance of the ciphers, we come to consider another phase of the Treasury’s report: the most important source of national income was that from salaries and wages—--9,688,000,000 dollars. Salaried persons with incomes of 5000 dollars or less reported a grand total of 6,069,000,000 dollars. Another way of telling the story is this: the 5000 dollars-a-ycar group got 59 per cent, of tho income and paid 6.8 per cent, of the taxes; while the millionaire-incomers with only 0.5 per cent, of tile income, j>aid 6.3 per cent, of the taxes.