Posted on 03/19/2009 1:49:17 PM PDT by reaganaut1
It is perhaps the most potent argument offered by those who oppose increasing the income tax on wealthy New Yorkers: If you raise it, they will flee.
That case has been made repeatedly by Gov. David A. Paterson, who says that higher taxes should be a last resort. It has been featured in a campaign by Taxpayers for an Affordable New York, a coalition of real estate and business interests. And it has been on the mind of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, New York City’s richest person, who said in a radio interview, “You can’t tax too much those that can move.”
Yet there is surprisingly little evidence to support the proposition that rich New Yorkers would bolt if forced to pay higher income taxes. Though tracking the movement of wealthy taxpayers from state to state is difficult, experts on public finance and migration say they have yet to document a substantial “rich drain” in states that have raised income taxes in recent years.
“At the level we’re talking about, there’s no quantitative evidence that it affects the mobility decisions of affluent taxpayers,” said Douglas S. Massey, a demographer at Princeton University and president of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
Pressured by enormous budget deficits, officials in Illinois, Hawaii, Wisconsin and New Jersey are considering new taxes on the rich. Lawmakers in Albany have discussed several proposals, including increases for those earning more than $250,000.
But even experts who oppose such taxes on other grounds — out of fear that they will retard economic growth and innovation, or encourage lawmakers to indulge in bouts of new spending — concede that there is not much evidence that raising taxes on the wealthy would drive out a significant number.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The rich in NY are mostly Democrats. They will be getting Democratic policies, good and hard.
lol. sez nyt.
This idiot doesn’t realize, that while they may keep a residence in NY, they register their businesses in the Caribbean or overseas somewhere and send their profits to Grand Cayman. Idiot.
Of course not. In fact, very rich people are more likely to move to New York where they know they can be taxed at much higher rates than from whence they came. People love to pay high taxes, or they simply don't mind whatsoever.
Here’s the thing I can’t understand...sooner or later they’re going to have to cut spending. They just have to cause folks will run out of money to tax. So why not start now?
Affluent retirees are not leaving NY, NJ, IL. etc...just to escape cold winters only. They don’t want their savings being raped by state and local taxes in these DemRat sinkholes.
Wow...the Times found professors, politicians, & think tanks that say taxes aren’t so bad... I’m shocked (obvious sarcasm)
Dimwit. The rich don’t pay the taxes whatever you do. You pay the tax when you buy the product at the store. It all just gets rolled into the price of doing business.
‘There is also the moral question”
The criteria they are using is how uch can i suck from people without them leaving. NOT how much should these people pay.
Of course, the NYT thinks the CURRENT residents will live forever, huh?
Think of it this way: people might not be DRIVEN out in droves, since family and business contacts and other issues will, maybe, anchor them. Also, they might not be able to AFFORD selling a home at a loss right now, or the price of breaking a lease.
However, these taxes WILL keep new people from MOVING IN!
So, the effect is gradual, but very real.
The “rich” might very well stay.
Every year, the “grim reaper” will cull the heard, and nobody will be there to take their places!
Maybe because it’s not the rich that higher taxes are killing?
Also the insane libs in NYC usually live in rent control apartments.
NYT idiot doesn’t realize his employer and NYC is on the slower local stop train to bankruptcy... Michigan is riding the express train to economic wasteland. They keep deluding themselves of the obvious dangers of high taxes....
then again liberals are brain-challenged! Let the shock therapy of reality hit ‘em hard!
He should look at California....
Put your residents money where your mouth is and we will know once and for all if tax rates will cause behavior change.
The NYT is not merely sipping at the Kool-Aid. They are swallowing huge draughts.
Wealthy New Yorkers may make their domiciles in New York City, as it IS a rather high-class address. But their businesses are all placed elsewhere, and their direct income from sources within the State of New York will remain at very low levels, comparatively, to what they are drawing as earnings from elsewhere. And as their investments in New York State will be very low, if any, they are a net LIABILITY on the City of New York.
In these days of Internet businesses, their entire commerce may be carried out online, with not a nickel passing through what may be considered the domain of New York State or New York City.
No taxable revenues, no taxes collected.
Similar to Illinois.
I have to pay a village tax too, it's only 25 cents per phone but it really irks me that my little town, population 1600 can levy a tax on cell phones at all.
Plus I pay that tax on 3 cell phones, one for mine, one for my wife's and one for my mother's, who lives in another state.
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