10 secrets that millionaires keep- Parte 2

4. "I have a concierge for everything."

That hot restaurant may be booked for months, at least when Joe Nobody calls to make reservations. But many top eateries set aside tables for celebrities and A-list clientele, and that's where the personal concierge comes in. (See "The $36,000-a-year personal concierge.")
Working for retainers that range anywhere from $25 an hour to six figures a year, these modern-day butlers have the inside track on chic restaurants, spa reservations, even an early tee time at the golf club. And good concierges will scour the planet for whatever their clients want, whether it's holy water blessed personally by the Pope, rare Mexican tequila or artisanal sausages found only in northern Spain.
"For some people, the cost doesn't matter," says Yamileth Delgado, who runs Marquise Concierge and who once found those sausages for a client -- 40 pounds of chorizo that went for $1,000.
Concierge services now extend to medical attention as well. At the high end: For roughly $2,000 to $4,000 a month, clients can get 24-hour access to a primary-care physician who makes house calls and can facilitate admission to a hospital "without long waits in the emergency room," as one New York City service puts it.

5. "You don't get rich by being nice."

John D. Rockefeller threatened rivals with bankruptcy if they didn't sell out to his company, Standard Oil. Bill Gates was ruthless in building Microsoft (MSN Money's publisher) into the world's largest software company (remember Netscape?).
Indeed, many millionaires privately admit they're "bastards in business," Prince says. "They aren't nice guys." (See "Does money make you mean?")
Of course, the wealthy don't exactly look in the mirror and see Gordon Gekko either. Most millionaires share the values of their moderate-income parents, says Lewis Schiff, a private wealth consultant and Prince's co-author: "Spending time with family really matters to them."
Just 12% say that what they want most to be remembered for is their legacy in business, according to the AmEx-Harrison study. (See "What really matters in retirement.")
Millionaires are also seemingly undaunted by failure. Crane, for example, now runs a successful company that screens tenants for landlords. But his first business venture, a real-estate partnership, went bankrupt, costing him $20,000 -- more than his house was worth at the time. "It was the most depressing time in my life, but it was the best lesson I ever learned," he says.

6. "Taxes are for little people."

Most millionaires do pay taxes. In fact, the top 1% of earners paid nearly 40% of federal income taxes in 2005 -- a whopping $368 billion -- according to the Internal Revenue Service.
That said, the wealthy tend to derive a higher portion of their income from dividends and capital gains, which are taxed at lower rates than wages (15% for long-term capital gains versus 25% for middle-class wages). Also, high-income earners pay Social Security tax on only their first $97,500 of income.
But the big savings come from owning a business and deducting everything related to it. Landlords can also depreciate their commercial properties and expenses such as mortgage interest. And that's without doing any creative accounting.
Then there are the tax shelters, trusts and other mechanisms the superrich use to shield their wealth. (See "6 ways to keep the IRS at bay.") An estimated 2 million Americans have unreported accounts offshore, and income from foreign tax shelters costs the U.S. $20 billion to $40 billion a year, according to the IRS.
Indeed, "an increasing number of people want to establish an offshore fund," says Vernon Jacobs, a certified public accountant in Kansas who specializes in legal foreign accounts.