More Millionaires Live in America

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 750, 24 August 1929, Page 30

More Millionaires Live in America

ENGLAND IS RICHER DOLLARS VERSUS POUNDS Income tax disclosures that Great Britain and Northern Ireland now have only 543 millionaires and Treasury estimates that the United States contains 14,000, offer a deceptive contrast. Figures are not always what they seem; they mostly need to be inspected from various sides before they yield the significent fact, says the New York “Times.” America’s progress toward riches in three centuries as compared with Britain's accumulations in eleven is phenomenal, but these figures on their face are over-sanguine. Allowance must he made for the circumstances that with Americans a millionaire is the possessor of 1,000,000 dollars. Where the pound sterling is the unit, a millionaire is one who has piled up almost 5,000,000 dollars. The numerical difference in population needs to be considered also, if it is desired to learn whether the United States, since the Pilgrims landed, has produced more large fortunes, relatively, than the United Kingdom since Alfred the Great. Further correction of perspective may be obtained if it is remembered that £1 is less than live dollars, and that the difference in favour of the dollar amounts to 147,500 in 5,000,000 dollars. High Incomes Compared American returns for last year are not yet tabulated, but taking the 1927 returns for the United States and the 1928 returns for Britain, the round figures in dollars match up as follow:.

Incomes o£ 50,000 to 75,000 dollars are comparatively more numerous in Great Britain than in the United States. In this category there are 4,603 Britons. To equal that on a population basis the United States should have 17,000 or so; instead they recorded in 1927 less than 10,000. In the millionaire class that reports incomes of 100,000 to 150,000 dollars, they did not hold their own. With four times as many people as Britain and Northern Ireland, they should show 5,916 in the dollar millionaire classification. They were short of that by 676. It is notable, too, that there are comparatively more Britons than Americans reporting taxable fortunes between 1,000,000 dollars and 2,000,000 dollars—the Americans lacking 926 of parity, in ratio to population. There, at an income indicating the possession of 2,000,000 dollars the British and American paths of riches begin to diverge, and from the annual income figure of 250,000 to 375,000 dollars the comparative excess in the American favour is nine, and from the latter income to half a million they rise 23 above parity. Of individuals paying taxes on more than 500,000 dollars income they had in the last year tabulated 838 against Britain's 147. Thus, assuming that the numbers of Americans and Britons were the same, the Americans would be in the lead by 150 with multi-millionaires. Their extremely rich outnumber Great Britain's in proportion to population more than 100 per cent. It is of more concern how equably the national income is distributed. Most of the impetus for that feeling started in America, and here more than anywhere in history has the conclusion of Francis Bacon been deemed good practice: Of great riches there is no real use except it to be in distribution; the rest is but conceit. There are detailed statistics of taxable incomes and of per capita incomes in the United States, and they have remained unchallenged as the highest average of distribution any country has ever known. Cabled results of British income tax do not deal with returns of less than 50,000 dollars yearly, so comparative data on that point are lacking. In both Great Britain and the United States there are ways of arranging to figure inconspicuously in the tax list —in Britain by incorporating an estate, in the United States by investing in tax-exempt securities and in making untaxable gifts. A general contrast is supplied by the British report that 2,250,000 Britons paid taxes, against 4,250,000 in 1926-27, and the American Treasury preliminary estimate that “a considerable increase is expected over the 2,455,559 who reported taxable incomes in the previous year.” Increase of Millionaires Millionaires increase in America about 1,000 a year, and 3,000 or so, the Treasury estimates, annually report themselves not liable to an impost. It is not that they prefer the smaller income yielded by tlie tax-exempt securities rather than pay tax on a larger, but that they are inclined to play safe iu investments instead of adventuring. They do not figure in the American gross personal incomes taxed, which in 1927 amounted to 26,095,455,551 dollars. This total is but about tw-o and three-tenths times as much as the British taxed income for the past year, although Americans number four times as many. The British tax rate, however, is considerably higher than theirs. On the total national income, taxed and untaxed, the United States made precise calculations in 1923 reaching in round numbers the sum of 70,000,000,000 dollars. For the same year in Britain, which is economical of statistics, there is only a guess mentioned in Parliamentary debate of a British total national income of I 50,000,000,000 dollars, on which estimj ate it was decided they could afford : to continue the dole to the jobless and j pay tbeir war debts to a country apparently 10.000,000,000 dollars a year poorer at the time. Of course, 1923 is far away in our financial reckonings. Unexampled American expansions have occurred since then.

In excess In excess 100,000 200,000 of 100,000. of 500.000. to 200,000. to 500.000. TJ.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. *13,147 S3S 7.354' 2.875 G.B. G.B. G.B. G.B. 2,8S6 147 2,065 674 ‘■‘U.S. Trea sury estimate for 192S is 14,000. In other brackets the statistics are: 50,000 100,000 150,000 200,000 to 1000,000. to 150,000. to 200,000. to 250,000 u.s. IT. S. U.S. U.S. 20,460 5,240 2.114 1,099 G.B. G.B. G.B. G.B. 6,424 1,479 5S6 27S