As was pointed out in an earlier thread, even the stat Rush puts on his website about how the richest 10% pay 95% of the taxes, or something like that, is misleading.
Since the truly wealthy don’t EARN anything, they are effectively ‘off the grid’.
If you have $3MM in capital, and you invest it in municipal bonds, then you will have $150,000/yr. in non-taxable income on a 5% bond. You don’t have to touch the interest, and you are definitely wealthy.
In WA state, you’ll get popped on property taxes, and probably escape gasoline taxes altogether since you don’t commute.
As such, you don’t pay taxes, not really.
The AMT was always a sham on the American people, because it never touched the ‘idle’ rich. If you earned a wage, you got hit.
Yeah, the truly rich usually escape the tax bite — why I said measured by AGI.
But, tax exempt interest from munis does get captured by the AMT. There are AMT tax free muni bonds, but they are fewer than non AMT, and price richer.