Estate Tax Barely Bites Billionaires

Among top‑400 decedents, effective estate tax payments averaged only 0.8% of wealth when married and 7% when single. Combined with low dividend distributions and passthrough businesses reporting taxable losses despite positive book income, this keeps individual income tax low relative to economic income. — It challenges assumptions about estate tax as a major backstop on dynastic wealth and spotlights design gaps in taxing business owners’ income.