I'm not certain of a good definition, but it certainly is not two professional incomes. I'd say a cutoff of 500,000 annual income or over 1.2 million in net assets applies (because that's the old inheritance standard) to most of the tax issues I've raised but the real abuses occur at much higher levels. A case could be made for anyhwere between 200,000 and 500,000 as far as an income level qualifying as rich. Probably both are correct depending on the region of the country you live in. Pick any number you want near those and I'll consider it a fair value for debate purposes.

For me it's really the point at which wealth accumulation becomes easy on top of a comfortable living. Something like being able to accumulate the 1.2 million net asset level in say 5 years. I can probably generate a differential equation showing the impact of key variables which would show where asset accumulation starts to accelerate versus income and we could hash our a fair estimate of the likely range of those variables (you know kind a like a computer model ;-)). Let me know if you want to get that technical.

Regards,
Mark