Thomas J. Stanley : Millionaire Next Door Author; Researcher; Expert

Please describe a life-changing event, experience or encounter that altered your life or circumstances in a substantial way. Please describe the experience, and how it impacts your life today. A few weeks ago, we asked the AMI Research Panelists and followers of @thomasjstanley ...

The Military Channel recently broadcast a program that dealt with famous submarine captains.  I was particularly interested when I saw an interview with Otto Kretschmer, the most productive submarine skipper in the Atlantic theatre during World War II.  In Marketing to the Affluent, I mentioned reading the book, Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days, by Karl Doenitz, the head of German U-boats.  In his book, Doenitz quotes Kretschmer: My proclivity was to surface in the middle of the convoy: that's where the ammunition and other important ships were. He was the first submariner to do so.  Younger, less experienced captains attacked from outside the convoy often encountering...

I was not going to tackle the issue of the new tax law changes at this time.  However, Ben A. wrote an excellent response to my "Henry" blog last week.  Ben pointed out accurately that the top 10% of the income earners in the United States pays over 70% of the tax on personal income.  After reading this, I went back and looked at the data that I had gathered from the IRS.  From this I estimate that in 2009 42% of the total federal income taxes in America will be paid by the top 1% of the income earners even though...

If you recall from an earlier blog, Part 1: The Millionaire Next Door:  Swiss? Cheese only, I hypothesized that most people who are guilty of tax evasion are hyper consumers.  But not all of these tax cheats use offshore accounts.  In fact, I am of the opinion that there is a much greater number of dollars of income unreported within the shores of the United States. As an example, consider a recent article written by Martin Vaughn in The Wall Street Journal (Sept. 1, 2009): IRS To Mine Payment Data on Mortgages. "The Internal Revenue Service will expand a program designed...

Compare the "rich" people (especially the Forbes 400 crowd I profiled in my previous blog) with the typical Joe and Nancy American household. The typical household in the United States generates a median income of just over $50,000 per year. As explained in an earlier blog, Average Rich? Median Poor?, its net worth is just over $90,000. Therefore, it realizes the equivalent of about 56% of its wealth each year. According to the Money Blue Book blog, in 2009 the federal income tax for married couples with this income filing jointly will be 15% or $7,500. Their tax bill ($7,500)...