The sad thing is to watch people using their 401K to invest in the stock market with tax deferred money. Then when they retire they are forced by law to distribute a set percentage of their 401K and the stock capital gains in your 401K get taxed at ordinary income rates. The biggest tax benefit you get in upper brackets is the ability to lower ordinary income and maximize capital gains and cut the tax on your gains. Or you can structure business deals (of the right kind) that pay you under a deferred interest arrangement- you gain leverage, plus You deferrer tax but only pay capital gains (like Romney and most likely Kushner and Trump and many other developers. Middle class ordinary income taxes help pay for deferred interest and capital gains in the top brackets.