That's probably because your original social circle largely already had the government minimize their taxes for them, in the form of a standard deduction that exceeds what they could hope for with an itemized deduction.

In that regard, most people minimize their taxes by doing nothing. The wealthy have to put effort in to get the same effect.

Not quite - even among those people who take the standard deduction, contributing to a tax advantaged account would reduce taxes for most of them. And a significant proportion of low income people don’t even file a tax return, so by doing nothing they literally give away money.

https://dailyyonder.com/low-income-families-risk-losing-thou...

Mostly because there's really no way for them to. When I was young and poor, I didn't have much way to pay less taxes (not that I paid that much - but if I wanted to pay less, I couldn't) - I just had my salary, and whatever is deducted from it was it, I had no realistic way to change it. Even such things as charity donations wouldn't change it because to get out of standard deductions etc. I'd have to donate way more than I could afford.

When I got a bit more money, mortgage, stock options, investments, etc. then I started to have options - do I pay this way or that way? Do I invest in this account or that account? Does HDHP/HSA make sense for me or not? Should I sell the certain investment to harvest the tax loss or keep it? Etc. etc. then my asset structure is more varied, so are the opportunities to pay more or less tax. I imagine for really wealthy people (definitely not me, still) there are even more options how to pay less taxes, and they are doing right serious considering them (or paying people to seriously consider them) - if I ever get rich, that's what I'd do.

Right but why go so far? Until you become like Buffett, surprised to pay less than ones secretary.

> surprised to pay less than ones secretary.

I don't think this is actually true. It's a nice rhetorical soundbite, but if you count properly (e.g. all taxes all assets owned by Buffett actually pay) there's no way he pays less unless his secretary is extremely exceptional for some reason. It is true that her tax structure is probably different from Buffett's, so if you creatively form your query so that taxes that Buffett predominantly pays are excluded and taxes that the secretary predominantly pays are included, you could probably find a way to justify it, but that would not be a valuable insight.

And of course the whole "pays less", as formulated, is a bit deceptive - his rate of one of the taxes is lower as a percentage, but he actually pays vastly more in actual money (Berkshire Hathaway alone, in which he holds a substantial share, pays billions in taxes every year).

I don't think the quote is meant in absolute dollars, but rather the percentage of her income and assets.

If you only count one specific tax among dozens, maybe. But again, that's just a pointless soundbite, which completely dissolves under a proper inquiry.

Generally, tax planning & preparation is going to be far more complicated for wealthy individuals, especially business owners with diverse investments.

What you see as "minimizing taxes" could be a necessary responsibility. If you're on the outside looking in, you may be uninformed about their circumstances and responsibilities. Its definitely a 1% of the 1st world problem, but its still a responsibility that has to be managed; Unless you're familiar their THEIR circumstances, its easy to incorrectly assume motivations.

Be glad you live in a country where you have this problem to complain about.

It's always funny to read this sort of thing because it's like you're so close to connecting the dots but don't quite get it.

Is it not entirely logical that a cohort that actually pays attention to where 20%, 30%, 40% of their money is going ends up wealthier than one that doesn't?

It may be a horshoe (the poor need to manage every peeny, the hyper rich distort society to minmax their riches), but the American Dream died decades ago. You can't just follow some financial wellness workshop to "save money" when you can't barely pay rent as is. Hard works correlation with wealth has decreased dramatically, very quickly

> Is it not entirely logical that a cohort that actually pays attention to where 20%, 30%, 40% of their money is going ends up wealthier than one that doesn't?

Many if not most rich never got rich, they happened to be born rich. In the situation I'm talking about, the said family has been wealthy for two centuries. And my in-laws are significantly less well-off than the generation before. Their ancestors may have been gifted in some way that got them rich in the first place, but there have definitely be some regression to average since then and their management of their wealth has been much less efficient than the one of my parents for instance (who aren't wealthy today, but are still clearly better than their own parents).

In fact I suspect that these people are obsessed about taxes because they know their fortune is ever going downhill because they lack the thing that made their ancestors successful so they spend their efforts trying to salvage their wealth instead of making one of their own.

It seems that you agree that they are wealthier than they would otherwise be because they try to minimise taxes.

The rest of your comment seems to be a political commentary on whether inheritance is legitimate. You're entitled to your opinion, but it comes across a bit like sour grapes to me.

> It seems that you agree that they are wealthier than they would otherwise be because they try to minimise taxes.

I've written the opposite actually. They would be much better off if they tried doing something else with their time rather than spending it avoiding taxes. The amount of effort (and money actually, tax attorney aren't cheap) would be much better invested elsewhere.

Did it ever occur to you that perhaps that could be part of why they are in fact wealthy?