The seven types of income: a map for UHNW households
Most households talk about “income” as if it were one substance that arrives in a paycheck and leaves in a tax return. Ultra-high-net-worth households know better in their bones and still often manage worse on paper. Liquidity arrives as a wire from a fund, a stock sale, a partnership distribution, a bonus, a rent roll, a royalty statement, or a foreign remittance. Each stream can look like cash. Each stream can be taxed as something entirely different. Confusing the map with the money is how families underpay estimates, overpay estimates, file in the wrong places, or walk into an audit with a story that does not match the forms.