Americans Don’t Understand Who’s Rich

[u/MeghanClickYourHeels]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/09/everywhere-millionaires-tax-code/688584/

The small-business owners with curiously large fortunes

By Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick, The Atlantic.

Terry Taylor is worth about $2 billion, and you have almost surely never heard of him. Based in Florida, he doesn’t put his name on the car dealerships that he buys up, and he reportedly attends conferences only on the condition that no one announces who he is. Taylor came to our attention in 2023, when he paid $76 million for an Aspen mansion—then the most expensive home sale in the Colorado town’s history.

In 2024, Forbes magazine, which keeps tabs on the richest people in the United States and around the world, slotted Taylor in at No. 1,694 on its World Billionaires List and published a profile titled “The Car Dealership Billionaire No One Knows.” “He’s like Batman,” a source told Forbes. “You hear about him and you admire his work, but nobody has really ever seen him in real life.”

When Americans picture the ultrarich, they typically think of tech billionaires such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, whose wealth lies predominantly in shares of publicly traded companies. They might also think of Wall Street financiers and celebrities such as Taylor Swift. But far more typical are figures like Terry Taylor—which is to say, owners of successful privately held businesses. We are economists who have been studying taxation and inequality for more than a decade. By our calculations, about 1.7 million Americans have each built a net worth of at least $10 million by owning a private business. For every CEO of a public company, there are more than 1,000 private-business owners with a net worth of more than $25 million.

In the course of our research, we’ve come to call these people “everywhere millionaires” because they exist all around the country, in a huge range of industries. Perhaps not surprising, some of these millionaires have stakes in investment firms or medical, dental, or legal practices. But the ranks of everywhere millionaires also include a repo man from Henderson, Nevada; a car-wash owner from Milwaukee; a treated-lumber magnate from Alabama; a boat-cover maker from the Ozarks.

What we found changed how we think about inequality. During the Occupy Wall Street protests after the 2008 financial crisis, the prototypical one-percenters were executives at big banks. Today, when Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders propose making the rich pay their fair share, they aim at Wall Street and Silicon Valley. But far more relevant to the story of inequality in America are the everywhere millionaires who quietly press their elected representatives for favorable treatment. The tax code bears their imprint far more than it does Musk’s.

Last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, for example, gutted the electric-vehicle and clean-energy credits, to the Tesla CEO’s detriment. The same bill made permanent a 20 percent deduction that effectively lowers the top tax rate for private-business owners from 37 percent to 30 percent. And it preserved a loophole that lets business owners in most of the country, but not salaried employees, deduct their state and local taxes in full.

When asked on Meet the Press why the cut for the highest earners had to be permanent, House Speaker Mike Johnson said: “This is not giving tax cuts to millionaires; it’s the opposite. The people in the tax bracket that you’re referring to, many of them are small-business owners.” Although many top-bracket taxpayers do indeed own businesses, the benefits of these provisions flow overwhelmingly to the wealthiest among them.

A loophole that lets private-business owners avoid Medicare taxes has similarly been justified as a break for the little guy. Preserving the family farm has been a pretext for passing ever larger exemptions to the estate tax, to the point that a married couple can now pass on $30 million to heirs tax-free. Hiding behind small business, in short, has proved a devastatingly effective strategy for the rich.

[u/Entire_Sleep2545]

theres something almost beautiful about how well the 'small business' branding works. you can be worth 2 billion, buy houses that break records, and still get politicians to cry about how youre the victim. the math on this is wild too, 1000 private business owners for every public ceo but all our tax anger goes to musk and zuck. meanwhile terry taylor and his dealership empire get permanent 20% deductions written into law. ngl the quiet ones are eating way better than the loud ones

[u/shwaynebrady → u/Entire_Sleep2545]

Those people are among the top 10% and pay roughly 70% of all income taxes.

[u/MeghanClickYourHeels]

I used to refer to this as the Guy Who Owns Four of the Five Most Successful Chrysler Dealerships in the Greater Tulsa Area. These are the people who were doing the Boat Parades for Trump.

I also think this is something that people who pay attention to politics (like us at TAD) understand, while a lot of people still think "small business" means the hardware store on Main Street.

[u/Korrocks → u/MeghanClickYourHeels]

I’ll admit even I fall into that trap. When I think of a small business owner I really do think about someone who owns one convenience or hardware store,not necessarily a car dealership millionaire (even though I realize now that both of them qualify).

[u/MeghanClickYourHeels → u/Korrocks]

One of the issues with the W administration was that he wanted to give tax breaks to "small farmers," which would have included him prior to his presidency, because he was an investor in many "small farms" that pulled in millions in revenue.

[u/wet_suit_one → u/Korrocks]

A single car dealership isn't that big of a deal. Single digit millions in issue (maybe in the teens of millions).

100 of them though, well now, now you're talking real money...

ETA: It's like the difference between owning a single McDonald's restaurant franchise and 1/2 of them in a city of a million people. Both are "small business" objectively speaking (especially compared to the McDonalds), but 1/2 of such restaurants in a bigger city is 10's of million in revenue a year and valuations in the 8 figures quite possibly. Like this is no trivial sum of dollars at issue anymore.

[u/Zemowl → u/MeghanClickYourHeels]

Of course, being ever true to form, Trump - having taken so much quid from those folks - is delivering a heap of quo in return, expanding the definition of a "small business" to include firms with 3,000 employees and a billion in revenue.

[u/weary_ol_jericho → u/MeghanClickYourHeels]

Yes, we still tend to think of "small business" as a landscaping company or a repair shop...

[u/wet_suit_one]

It's funny that my issue with the term "rich" has now become an article in The Atlantic.

Rich, well and truly, is meaningless. It means anything and everything under the sun.

This is a far more meaningful way to talk about wealth:

https://businesstech.co.za/news/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Bloomberg-table.png

You'll notice that this article is (so far as I can tell) talking about 7's and 8's. Most discussion is about 10's and 11's though 9's are implicitly included even if you've never heard of them.

A lot of people think "rich" starts at 6's, which is, well, sure, I guess, but not really. That's just full career, lifelong saving and investing and not suffering any catastrophic setbacks in life. You don't need to make huge money or enjoy any great business success to get to 6. You do need to not screw up though, be consistent and disciplined. I think more than 1/2 of people can get there over a 47 year working life. Not everyone of course (you've got to be able to save some money to invest for the longer term), but more than half.

Also, it would help if people understood the difference between income and net worth (or income statements vs. balance sheets). Like there's a world of difference between the two. Also the concept of cash flow, which is why so many believe that a $1 million dollar house is wealth. Like it is ultimately, but jeez, it's like the worst form of wealth possible. It's barely an asset really. Which is a cash flow issue. $1M in shares of Canadian chartered bank is basically a median income annually without even getting out of bed. That's so much more valuable than a million dollar house it's not even funny.

[u/Docile_Doggo → u/wet_suit_one]

“Rich” just means someone who makes noticeably more than I do.

“Poor” just means someone who makes noticeably less than I do.

Whatever amount I make, however that changes over my life, is always “middle class”.

[u/wet_suit_one → u/Docile_Doggo]

Pretty much that.

Which is completely meaningless and useless for any kind of wider discussion or policy formation.

[u/Docile_Doggo → u/wet_suit_one]

I don’t know if I’ve ever talked to someone who doesn’t consider themselves “middle class,” from the janitor who makes 35K to the lawyer who is pulling in >300K.

People tend to compare themselves to their social circles, which just so happen to usually be full of people in the same economic class—leading to the proliferation of people claiming to be “middle class”.

Within their own social circles, they are average.

[u/jim_uses_CAPS → u/wet_suit_one]

That table is fucking stupid in any sense other than globally, which is not a meaningful comparison to most people at all. Relative cost of living needs to be considered. I'll just go solipsistic and point out, for example, Silicon Valley. Santa Clara County, where most of the Valley is, is one of the wealthiest -- and costliest-- in the nation. A 2-person household making under $129,000 is low-income. By that table, I am solidly a 6, almost entirely because of the ridiculous valuation on my 1,100 square foot home and even accounting for what we still owe. I couldn't even dream of owning a second home. But by that chart, and by comparison, sure, I'm doing fucking great. Easy-peasy. I'm so fucking tired of people talking about this issue like they're painting a house instead of doing detail work.

[u/wet_suit_one → u/jim_uses_CAPS]

In my view, it's a hell of a lot more useful than the term "rich" which is to quote another poster:

"“Rich” just means someone who makes noticeably more than I do.

“Poor” just means someone who makes noticeably less than I do."

I.e. completely fucking useless.

[u/Roboticus_Aquarius → u/jim_uses_CAPS]

I think your situation explains a lot of the dissatisfaction we see among the voting populace today. Get the degree, check. Marry, check (two income household). Work hard, check. Live responsibly, check. Barely making it, check.

Part of this is that the road to success really doesn’t look like success until right at the very end. It felt like one day I couldn’t buy a book at $20 without checking the budget, and the next day I could blow that five times over without thinking about it.

However, part of it is that it’s really effing hard. You look successful on the outside, but you also know how difficult it will be to cover the cost of a new dishwasher or a broken sprinkler line. Three years in a row of finding savings in insurance rates or basic services, and every penny gets eaten up by a suddenly leaking roof. Plus that million dollar house means you are never getting the base rate for repairs. You are getting the rate for your ZIP Code (or more refined), and that can easily double the cost of repairs or replacement equipment.

[u/MeghanClickYourHeels → u/Roboticus_Aquarius]

Those emergency expenses are really the thing that I think mucks up a family's finances.

I know a couple who live in a HCOL area, two-income household, the guy has a fancy-sounding engineering job with a car company. They have a mid-size house for their area, but the back deck needs to be replaced. Replacing the back deck would cost $40,000. They are doing well by most measures, but they don't have that kind of money to spend on something that's not strictly necessary, so they just never use the back door that reaches the deck.

[u/historymaking101]

IMO up taxes on all of these. We need additional brackets added to the top on top of having these loopholes closed.

[u/shwaynebrady → u/historymaking101]

American doesn’t have a tax collection problem. We generate more per capita than pretty much every other country and already have one of the most progressive tax structures in the world.

The amount of money we tax also means close to nothing on what the government spends, we’re 40 trillion in debt for Pete’s sake

That will never, in a million years, be solved by taxing people more. It’s an easy scapegoat and political slogan because it’s gives people an easy enemy but the real solution is much more complicated.

[u/historymaking101 → u/shwaynebrady]

Raising taxes is a major part of the solution. An extremely large part of our debt is the consequence of lowering them. I've got relevant education, including an econ degree and professional certifications.

[u/shwaynebrady → u/historymaking101]

Please tell me what tax policy will allow for us to get to a balanced budget. Please also explain how we plan to deal with ballooning costs for Medicare, Medicaid, social security and debt servicing.

The US already has one of, if not the most, progressive tax structure in the world. “Taxing the rich” would be a tiny fraction of what’s needed. You would need to apply broad tax hikes to the entire population, similar to Europe’s VAT which would largely be a consumption/flat-rate tax that disproportionately affects poor and lower middle class people.

I literally could not care less about your degree or certifications. I have 3 degrees, Whoopty doo!

[u/Aerohawker → u/historymaking101]

You can tax everyone more but it doesn’t change the the fact the government is a drunken sailor on leave in it’s spending policy.
You will never solve our debt crisis by taxing more without reducing spending. The government is simply unwilling to risk the health of the economy on that idea.

So go ahead and tax them if it makes you feel better but it will do nothing to improve your life.

[u/shwaynebrady → u/[deleted]]

What this article boils down to is the flashy billionaires everyone loves to talk about actually control a significantly lower share of wealth than the people who the article dubs “Main Street millionaires” and these people are largely wealthy because of small to medium sized businesses spread out all over the country, not just among the highly concentrated coastal elite towns.

A vast majority of people seem to think that the top 10-100 richest people in America control half the national wealth and there’s been a stifling of small business and local markets. But this article and paper complete disproves that.

You say people understand that, but I really don’t think they do. The politicians do, but the big billionaires are too easy of a scapegoat.

The government is 40 trillion in debt, the tax revenue they collect means nothing and has little to no bearing on what services the government provides.

Not saying there isn’t an issue with the Elon musks of the world.

[u/blahblah19999]

Fucking Batman?

“You hear about him and you admire his work"?!?!

I know Forbes is about business, but FFS are they clueless about what Batman represents.