The IRS has data on estate taxes which breaks down the nature of the assets. Estate taxes for 2012 the latest year with data is only applicable to estates with over $5 million in value. Therefore if we look at the estate tax data we can get a sample of the asset mix of multi-millionaires in the US. The information is going to be skewed towards older people as these are for the estates of deceased people.
Here are the numbers for the 9,412 returns filed in 2012 :
Value | % of total | |
Publicly traded stock | 31,868,113 | 26% |
State and local bonds | 13,595,957 | 11% |
Cash assets | 11,726,706 | 9% |
Other real estate | 10,327,985 | 8% |
Closely held stock | 9,654,433 | 8% |
Retirement assets | 6,631,757 | 5% |
Personal residence | 5,908,960 | 5% |
Real estate partnerships | 4,495,892 | 4% |
Mortgages and notes | 4,298,336 | 3% |
Other limited partnerships | 4,015,354 | 3% |
Farm assets | 3,729,481 | 3% |
Other noncorporate business assets | 2,843,852 | 2% |
Art | 2,757,975 | 2% |
Private equity and hedge funds | 2,489,808 | 2% |
Corporate and foreign bonds | 2,228,937 | 2% |
Other assets | 1,931,019 | 2% |
Insurance, face value | 1,922,184 | 2% |
Other Federal bonds | 1,731,202 | 1% |
Depletables / intangibles | 832,080 | 1% |
Unclassifiable mutual funds | 814,457 | 1% |
Bond funds | 519,606 | 0.4% |
Insurance, policy loans | 66,809 | 0.1% |
Federal savings bonds | 63,407 | 0.1% |
And here's a graph showing the larger asset groups :
(click image for full size) |
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