The Secret Lives of Millionaires

If you want to know where wealthy people congregate, go to the IRS zip code database. It displays income statistics by zip code and by broad income brackets. The latest available data is for 2008 tax returns.

I used this database to focus on 64 places where the average income in the highest income range ($200,000 and up) was at least $1 million. There were 130,400 high-income returns in these communities.

What I wound up with was a statistical snapshot of somewhat or very prosperous people in very prosperous areas.

My list of 64 millionaires’ towns differs considerably from the lists you see published elsewhere. The usual approach is to compute the average income for all taxpayers in each zip code. My method zeroes in on the higher-bracket families. It will pick up a concentration of mansion owners even if these swells happen to live in the same mailing address as a lot of middle-incomers.

Excluded from my list: areas that don’t have at least three homes listed for sale on Zillow at $5 million and up. My aim was to identify places where wealthy people live near other wealthy people, as opposed to addresses (like Rockefeller Center) that wealthy people use for mailing tax returns.

I included only zip codes were there were at least 100 tax returns displaying $200,000 or more of income. In several places (including Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Greenwich, Conn. and Naples, Fla.) I combined several adjoining zip codes.

The IRS does not reveal (or even know) net worth figures. I estimated them from the various kinds of income that investments generate.

From dividends reported I extrapolated an estimated stock portfolio value by comparing dividends paid in 2008 on the Vanguard Total Stock Market fund to the fund’s price on Sept. 7. I made a similar calculation with a taxable bond index fund.

The zip code file doesn’t show tax-exempt interest but a different IRS file shows the average ratio of exempt to taxable interest. I used it to estimate municipal bond holdings.

The trickiest matter is estimating the value of investment property other than stocks and bonds. This category includes commercial real estate, oil wells, family businesses and partnerships whose taxable income doesn’t show up on Schedule B of a tax return along with the interest and dividends.

I assumed a value for these alternative investments equal to 25 times their taxable income. That multiple is high for active businesses but low for real estate. On the whole I think it’s conservative.

Three things are left off my net worth estimates. One is short-term bank deposits. The next is home equity. The third is retirement accounts. The IRS lists IRA payouts but there is no simple relationship between a payout and an account value.

Average
Locale for taxpayers with at least $200,000 of AGI
Income Net worth Chrtble
($mil) ($mill) donations
(pct of AGI)

Fisher Island, Fla. 3.23 57.2 2.9
Alpine, N.J. 2.05 27.5 1.7
Medina, Wash. 1.39 25.5 5.9
Palm Beach, Fla. 1.54 23.3 4.6
Kings Point/Great Neck, N.Y. 1.35 21.8 3.2
Atherton, Calif. 1.86 21.3 3.2
Boca Raton, Fla. 1.45 21.2 2.8
Preston Hollow, Dallas 1.54 20.9 3.4
Purchase, N.Y. 2.16 20.0 3.8
Old Westbury, N.Y. 1.51 19.6 4.0
Key Largo, Fla. 1.31 17.9 4.1
Beverly Hills, Calif. 1.41 17.1 4.1
Charlottesville, Va. 1.05 16.7 5.2
Bay Harbor Islands, Miami 1.04 16.6 3.8
Millbrook, N.Y. 1.45 16.6 2.4
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 1.21 16.5 2.1
Sutton Place, Manhattan 1.28 16.5 3.8
Far Hills, N.J. 1.75 16.4 2.7
Oyster Bay, N.Y. 1.14 16.2 2.1
Naples, Fla. 1.21 16.0 4.2
Hobe Sound /Jupiter Island, Fla. 1.02 15.4 3.3
New Vernon, N.J. 2.06 15.3 1.7
Boca Grande, Fla. 1.65 15.2 2.4
Jupiter, Fla. 1.28 14.7 2.9
Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. 1.15 14.3 2.9
Locust Valley, N.Y. 1.15 14.3 3.5
Beacon Hill, Boston 1.24 14.2 3.4
Greenwich, Conn. 1.77 14.2 3.6
Delray Beach, Fla. 1.05 14.0 3.1
Newport Beach/Npt Coast, Calif. 1.09 13.6 2.7
Kenilworth, Ill. 1.21 13.4 3.1
River Oaks, Houston 1.55 12.9 3.0
Ross, Calif. 1.32 12.8 2.5
Los Angeles (portion) 1.03 12.4 3.9
Oak Lawn, Dallas 1.11 12.2 3.7
Bonita Springs, Fla. 1.04 12.2 2.7
Longboat Key, Fla. 1.09 11.9 5.5
Bunker Hill, Houston 1.20 11.9 3.2
Glencoe, Ill. 1.14 11.9 2.3
Vero Beach, Fla. 1.06 11.7 3.6
Weston, Mass. 1.37 11.5 4.5
Miami (downtown) 1.07 11.4 0.9
Rye, N.Y. 1.31 11.4 3.1
Bel Air, Los Angeles 1.01 11.0 4.8
Clinton, Manhattan 1.03 10.9 4.2
Winnetka, Ill. 1.24 10.8 3.5
University Park, Dallas 1.08 10.8 4.1
Rumson, N.J. 1.17 10.8 1.5
Santa Monica, Calif. 1.12 10.8 2.1
Manchester, Mass. 1.06 10.6 2.4
Upper East Side, Manhattan 1.26 10.4 3.3
Lake Forest, Ill. 1.12 10.0 3.4
Amagansett, N.Y. 1.20 9.6 3.6
Water Mill/Southhampton, N.Y. 1.17 9.1 2.1
Bedford, N.Y. 1.05 8.5 2.5
Short Hills, N.J. 1.03 8.4 1.8
New Canaan, Conn. 1.24 8.0 3.4
Portola Valley, Calif 1.10 7.7 4.0
Gold Coast, Chicago 1.07 7.4 3.8
Soho, Manhattan 1.35 7.2 2.1
Turtle Bay, Manhattan 1.15 6.8 3.9
White Plains, N.Y. 1.01 6.7 1.2
Darien, Conn. 1.08 5.9 1.9
Tribeca, Manhattan 1.04 4.6 1.4



Figures are averages for taxpayers with at least $200,000 in adjusted gross income in 2008. Net worth is a September 2011 estimate based on 2008 investment income; it excludes cash equivalents, homes and retirement accounts. Charity is the fraction of AGI claimed as deductible donations.

sursa = forbes