ProPublica: The Number Of People With IRAs Worth $5 Million Or More Has Tripled, Congress Says

Following up on my previous posts (links below):  ProPublica, The Number of People With IRAs Worth $5 Million or More Has Tripled, Congress Says:

The number of multimillion-dollar individual retirement accounts has soared in the past decade, as more wealthy Americans use the tax-advantaged vehicles to shield fortunes from income taxes, according to new data released by Congress today.

The data reveals for the first time the staggering amount of money socked away in tax-free mega Roth accounts: more than $15 billion held by just 156 Americans.

The new data also shows that the number of Americans with traditional and Roth IRAs worth over $5 million tripled, to more than 28,000, between 2011 and 2019.

The data was requested by Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., following ProPublica’s story last month exploring the rise of mega Roth IRAs. The story, based on confidential IRS data obtained by ProPublica, revealed that tech mogul Peter Thiel has the largest known Roth IRA, worth $5 billion as of 2019.

In a Senate Finance hearing on retirement on Wednesday, Wyden said such massive accounts underscore the country’s inequalities. “Individuals at the very top — at the very, very top — are able to game the rules to get ahead and basically abuse taxpayer-subsidized accounts with pricey accountants and lawyers,” Wyden said. “This increases the already existing retirement inequality between retirement haves and have-nots to an extreme level.” ...

The latest numbers come from analysts at Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. They update a widely cited study from the Government Accountability Office that released figures on large IRAs in 2011. ...

The new figures show that, as of 2019, nearly 3,000 taxpayers held Roth IRAs worth at least $5 million. (The total of more than 28,000 people holding IRAs of that size includes both traditional and Roth IRAs.) The aggregate value of those Roth IRAs was more than $40 billion.

Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:

• ProPublica: America's Richest People Pay Little To Nothing In Federal Income Taxes (June 8, 2021)
• Dorothy Brown And David Cay Johnston Discuss Yesterday's ProPublica's Report On The Tax Secrets Of The .001% (June 9, 2021)
• Dorothy Brown On The ProPublica Tax Report, Racial Justice, And The Gig Economy (June 14, 2021)
• ProPublica: How Peter Thiel Turned $2,000 In A Roth IRA Into $5,000,000,000 (June 28, 2021)
• ProPublica: The Billionaire Playbook — How Sports Owners Use Their Teams To Avoid Millions In Taxes (July 12, 2021)