Who says America has no aristocracy...?

The 400 wealthiest taxpayers accounted for more than 1 percent of all the income in the United States in the year 2000, more than double their share just eight years earlier, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. But their tax burden plummeted over the period.

The data, in a report that the I.R.S. released last night, shows that the average income of the 400 wealthiest taxpayers was almost $174 million in 2000.

$174 million! Have you ever tried to think what you'd do with just $1 million? I did once, and came to realize I could probably quit working, send my kid to college and still live on the interest alone, if I invested wisely. Of course, I have more modest tastes than the average jet-setter.

To put all this into dollars and cents, the NY Times articles goes on:

The rate actually paid by the top 400 in 2000 [with average income of $174 million] was about the same as that paid by a single person making $123,000 or a married couple with two children earning $226,000, according to Citizens for Tax Justice, a labor-backed group whose calculations are respected by a broad spectrum of tax experts.

The group favors higher taxes on the wealthy, and its director, Robert S. McIntyre, said yesterday that the I.R.S. data bolsters that viewpoint. "Regardless of which party these 400 are in, these are the guys Bush wants to help, even though they have so much money they don't know what to do with it," he said. "How Bush feels about the half of the population that doesn't have much money is he got them a tax cut worth an average of $19 each."

And the trickle-downers continue to whine the rich pay too much in taxes, and that's why the economy is stalling.

Complete story here.