The term is HENRY. High Earner, Not Rich Yet. People making $100-250k are surprised to find themselves still living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to save for retirement or afford things their parents did like take a vacation, improve their homes, or having children.

They're not struggling to survive, but they aren't living a life of luxury without going into debt.

There's a bunch of stuff in those books that I certainly never knew... for example:

"The IRS devised a formula for valuing personal use of corporate jets.

At the end of 2002, the rates for personal use of corporate planes were as low as $0.09/mile for small planes, and no more than $0.83/mile for the biggest jets.

For a personal trip from NY to LA in a luxury corporate jet, the official rates valued the trip at $1,347/person. (Less than the first-class fare of $2,200.)

The executive pays nothing.

Companies count the value of this personal trip as if it were income for the executive, and the executive just pays the income tax on that amount.

So, for an executive in a top tax bracket, the additional tax on that flight was $520.

But if there’s a memo in the corporate files stating that commercial air travel is too dangerous and company-provided transportation is necessary, then it’s only $260 in federal income taxes.

The $260 that the government takes is offset by the value of the tax deduction that the corporation claims on the jet.

The company gets a deduction that saves at least $3,500 in taxes.

That means the minimum subsidy the taxpayers provide to the executive for taking the jet is $3,240, the value of what the company saves in taxes offset by the $260 from the executive.

Diligent shareholders don’t know how much personal use of a corporate jet costs them, as those details aren’t noted in the documents that shareholders see."

Another good one:

"In 1998, Jerry Curnutt was the IRS partnership specialist. While examining a tax return that reported an investment of $10, he discovered a tax dodge. 

The partnership’s $1,000 in capital earned almost ½ billion in profits. 

The partner who had put up the $10 (Partner A) received 1% of the profits, while the other 99% went to the other partner (Partner B). Partner A was a business that had to pay taxes on its profits. Partner B was a tax-exempt entity. 

Here’s how it worked:

The first trick was to report the profits, but assign them to Partner B, avoiding about $160 million of federal income taxes.

The second trick was characterizing this profit as capital due to Partner A, so that no tax would be paid.

Then, the capital was returned in the form of property that could be depreciated, and by writing off a portion of the ½ billion dollar asset each year, the Partner A could reduce its taxes on other profits it earned.

Thus, for $10, Partner A avoided paying $330 million of taxes over a few years.

Ultimately, Curnutt found a small number of partnerships that didn’t report the profit, resulting in billions in taxes that were never paid.

The IRS declined to pursue these entities, because auditing partnerships carried a political risk, such as turning up the names of important campaign contributors."

Yeah, the bit about people not being able to understand is an overly condescending way to phrase it, and is a cop-out. But we also see people at large completely missing the issue by trying to project their own experiences with The System onto the ultra wealthy.

Like, the number of times I've seen people astronomical income tax rates to deal with billionaires highlights both a misunderstanding of what income taxes actually tax, and how the economic elite generate their wealth.

No one is out there calling for a tax on unrealized capital gains, for instance. And while some people are lobbying for a wealth tax, the tax rates proposed are very small, which makes reactionaries quick to reject them.

It's not that we plebs cannot understand, it's that most of us just straight up do not understand, and choose to ignore that fact.