Prospect Research: What You Don’t Know — and How It Can Hurt You

But the definitive source of information on wealth in the United States is the Internal Revenue Service.

In the winter 2005-2006 publication of Statistics of Income Bulletin, the IRS released its latest statistics on personal wealth. The report looks at asset composition for estates of the top wealth holders in the country and gives insight into the more than 7.4 million individuals with assets greater than $675,000. The research, based on federal estate tax returns of 2001 decedents, is consolidated in Table 1 and shows a generalized composition of assets for the top wealth holders with assets in the range of $675,000 to $20 million-plus. Real estate, including personal residence and investment property, makes up nearly 18 percent of the assets. Stocks of publicly traded companies represent about 29 percent of the asset distribution.