[Fledermaus]

ROFL, this is the reason California is in the fiscal mess they are in.

High income people left the state due to high tax rates while more and more lower income people came into the state. This lowers the taxable income base while the socialists services go up in supply to the lower income people that keep arriving due to generous benefits.

It's simple arithmetic.

[calcowgirl]

Yep. That would explain why Warren Buffet has a house in Laguna Beach and calls Omaha home. Or why so many professional athletes take up residence in Florida. Businesses flee California... and so do the taxpaying wealthy.

[Myrddin]

Discounting any deductions, my Idaho state income tax will be almost $1100 higher than if I was still in California. My property tax is around $3,000 vs around $1,500 at the old house in California. My wife is making only half as much annually as well. Idaho sales tax is lower and the difference in outlay over the last year saved me far more that the higher state income tax and property tax. The real cost of goods is far cheaper in Idaho as well. California merchants have to factor in the higher cost of disability insurance and stupid regulations relating to milk production and gasoline manufacturing standards.

In 2000, a cost of living calculator placed a California employee making $108,000 annually as equivalent in real earnings to a Pocatello, Idaho employee making $70,000.