Propublica's claims about how they verified the information seem to contradict the impression that they only recieved information about a few ultra rich persons

Propublica's claims about how they verified the information seem to contradict the impression that they only recieved information about a few ultra rich persons-- comparing published returns from some 50 persons? I'd guess you'd probably need the entire top 10% of all taxpayers to end up with the returns of 50 persons who've published them. In any case, one thing this doesn't seem to point out is any significant nexus between most of the content of the article and the private data. Okay, various parties reported almost no income in some years-- We knew that. They talk about trusts used to escape estate taxes, but don't support it with their trove of private information. As the OP says, the Propublica piece is essentially a standard tax policy op-end that could have been written today without the benefit of any new private information. The connection to the private data seems weak at best.