Texas wealth is rising with the number of new millionaires
As the April 15 Tax Day approaches, the number of Texans who earned more than a million dollars last year could hit a new high, data suggests.
In 2021, about 12.6 million tax returns were filed in Texas, according to Internal Revenue Service data released in February. Of those, 72,880 reported an adjusted gross income of at least $1 million, according to a new analysis from the Houston Business Journal. That’s a 47% increase from the 49,420 Texans who made it into the million-plus club in 2020.
Those earners therefore qualified as members of Texas’ “1%,” along with some 50,000 other filers, according to the IRS data.
While 2021 is the most recent year for which IRS data is available, it is likely that the number of million-dollar earners in Texas has grown since then, a result of the ongoing recovery from the pandemic.
Some of the filers who reported million-plus incomes in 2021 are likely newly minted Texans. Since the century began, domestic migration has steadily contributed to Texas’ overall population growth, with some newcomers fleeing high-tax states such as California and New York.
However, California and New York also had an increase in the number of filers reporting at least $1 million in income in 2021 compared with 2020, according to the data. California ranked first in the nation in terms of million-dollar earners in 2021, with about 156,000 people reporting that level of income compared with 110,000 in 2020.
Another factor in the growing number of Texas millionaires, the Houston Business Journal reports, was “the rapidly evolving pay picture at all
levels” as workers made more as a result of an extremely tight post-pandemic labor market, which has only loosened slightly since then.
A booming stock market has helped boost incomes too, for Texans with the means to invest.
According to Forbes magazine’s 38th annual World Billionaires List, released last week, there are now 15 billionaires in Houston, up from 12 in 2023, and the collective wealth of the 12 who were on the list last year has increased from $71.1 billion in 2023 to $81.5 billion as of this month.