What? You still haven't made your fortune?

  Beginning to think that you'll never get rich by investing?

  Don't despair.

  There is still hope.   It comes to us from an unlikely source, the Internal Revenue Service, in a study that is updated every three years.

The most recent study, imaginatively titled "Personal Wealth, 2001," was published at the end of 2005 in the thrilling "Statistics of Income Bulletin." This means we can expect the 2004 study around the end of 2008, so don't ask.

That's a tad late, but don't go thinking you can send your January estimated tax payment for 2006 at a more convenient time. Like 2011. The Internal Revenue Service isn't big on reciprocity.

But let's not carp.

The Internal Revenue Service is big on data about the income we earn and the assets all of us minions have accumulated. It develops the data because we are only transient custodians. Much of that income and related assets will eventually find its way into the IRS's ready hands.

So it's not surprising that it tracks our money better than the alumni department of your alma mater or that dogged charity to which you sent $15 in 1989.

That data is how the IRS may finally help you make your fortune: market research.

Data from the IRS is the first step on getting rich the old-fashioned way, through marriage. Its personal wealth studies are done by examining the estate tax filings for 2001, filings that were required for gross estates of at least $675,000.

If you are wondering what the estates of people who are thoroughly dead has to do with your prospects of becoming wealthy through marriage, just be patient. I will explain.

Our friends at the IRS assume that the distribution of wealth among the recently dead is representative of the distribution of wealth among those still living. So they take the estate filing data and squeeze it through a matrix of actuarial assumptions to make estimates of wealth among the living.

Including those you might marry.

Here are the basic findings. In 2001 some 7.4 million people, about 3.5 percent of the adult population, had a combined net worth of $13.8 trillion and accounted for nearly 33 percent of all net worth.

Four million of the 7.4 million were men, with an average net worth of $2 million.   Some 66 percent were married, but 16.3 percent were single, 8.7 percent were widowed, and 8.5 percent were divorced or separated. About 73,000 of these men had an individual net worth of at least $10 million.

It's a long trek to being listed in the Forbes 400.

There were 3.4 million wealthy women, with an average net worth of $1.7 million. There were 50,000 women with a net worth of at least $10 million. The good news for aspirant male fortune hunters is that only 49 percent of these lovely women were married. While only 14 percent of wealthy women were single, 26 percent were widowed, and nearly 11 percent were divorced or separated.

One thing the aspirant fortune hunter should gird for is that marrying well isn't likely to have you living in a palace. Burgeoning advertisements for houses that cost $1 million and more notwithstanding, your wealthy target will probably be like the title of the book "The Millionaire Next Door." While men with less than $1 million in net worth had nearly 21 percent of their net worth in their personal residence, those with at least $1 million but less than $10 million had only 10 percent. Men with at least $10 million had only 3 percent of their net worth in their personal residence.

So a bachelor with $10 million might easily be living in a (relatively) humble $300,000 house. Wealthy women had larger commitments to their personal residence, with women worth more than $10 million having 5 percent of their net worth in their home. That's a $500,000 house.   It could be more, but you have to wonder: Who is buying the palaces in Naples, Jackson Hole, and La Jolla?

Where do you go to hunt for a wealthy spouse?

Connecticut, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia score as the top three locations for millionaire density. A range of 3.2 percent to 2.4 percent of the adult population ranks as millionaires there. California ranks fourth for density, at 2.3 percent. But it ranks No. 1 for total number of millionaires at 572,000.

In sheer numbers, New York, Florida, Illinois and Texas follow California. But Texas, for all its tales of extravagant wealth, is pretty slim pickings. Only 1.2 percent of its adult population rank as millionaires.

All in all, it sounds like tough work.

On the web:

Want to read the entire report, with vastly more statistics? Visit: http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/index.html Click on "Personal Wealth", and then click on "2001" under "SOI Bulletin Articles"

Want other measures of wealth by age? Visit my wealth scoreboard

  

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Personal finance writer Scott Burns is syndicated by Universal Press. His twice weekly column appears in newspapers from Boston to Seattle. He is the Chief Investment Strategist for AssetBuilder, Inc. Readers can register at www.scottburns.com. Questions/comments can be posted directly. They can also be sent, without registration, to scott@scottburns.com. Questions of general interest will be answered in future columns and on this blog.

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