Hidden deep inside the IRS' most recent annual report focusing on just the Top 400 Individual Tax returns, titled "The 400 Individual Income Tax Returns Reporting the Largest Adjusted Gross Incomes Each Year, 1992-2009 [2]" we find the definitive confirmation of just where the Fed's Wealth Effect has gone. As seen in the highlighted cell on the table below, just the top 400 individual tax returns account for a whopping 16% of the net Capital Gains tax paid in the US in all of 2009 (the most recent year recorded).
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Putting this number in context, since 1992 the average percentage of the total capital gains attributable to the top 400 earners was "only" 8.69%. In 2009, or the year QE officially began, it was doulbe this or 16%.
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One can't wait for the 2010 update... or the 2011, 2012, 2013 and so on - all those "other" years in which the Fed's "wealth effect" continued to benefit the capital gains of the Top 400...