Posted on 07/09/2012 5:16:22 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In light of President Obama's exhortation to hike taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year earlier today, here's a well-timed piece of evidence demonstrating what happens when you decide you'd rather engage in populist persecution and punish the wealthy for their economic contributions rather than make tough budget-cutting decisions. A new report indicates that the state of Maryland is bleeding residents and tax revenue — an emigration likely due to the wildly blue state's recent tax hikes.
The study, by the anti-tax group Change Maryland, says that a net 31,000 residents left the state between 2007 and 2010, the tenure of a "millionaire's tax" pushed through by Gov. Martin O'Malley. The tax, which expired in 2010, in imposed a rate of 6.25 percent on incomes of more than $1 million a year.
The Change Maryland study found that the tax cost Maryland $1.7 billion in lost tax revenues. A county-by-county analysis by Change Maryland also found that the state’s wealthiest counties also had some of the largest population outflows.
In total, Maryland has added 24 new taxes or fees in recent years, Change Maryland says. Florida, which has no income-tax, has been a large recipient of Maryland's exiled wealthy.
“Maryland has reached the point of diminishing returns. We’re taxing people too much and people are voting with their feet,” said Change Maryland Chairman Larry Hogan. “Until we change our focus from tax increases to increasing the tax base, more people are simply going to leave, leading to a downward spiral of raising revenues on fewer citizens.”
Yet again, one of the United States’ laboratories-of-democracy offers us another example of the results of poor public policy; in this case, desperately clinging to tax hikes on the wealthy as a solution to your problems (which, by the way, they aren’t): Raise taxes on the entrepreneurs, business owners, inventors, innovators, movers and shakers all you want, but you can’t reasonably expect that they’ll stick around to pay ‘em. At some point, it’s going to become worthwhile for the moneymakers to jump ship. In 2011 alone, a record 1,800 individuals renounced their United States citizenship — and if that doesn’t provide a red flag about our tax code, I don’t know what does.
Here’s just one case in point that broke earlier today:
Denise Rich, the wealthy socialite and former wife of pardoned billionaire trader Marc Rich, has given up her U.S. citizenship – and, with it, much of her U.S. tax bill.
Rich, 68, a Grammy-nominated songwriter and glossy figure in Democratic and European royalty circles, renounced her American passport in November, according to her lawyer. …
By dumping her U.S. passport, Rich likely will save tens of millions of dollars or more in U.S. taxes over the long haul, tax lawyers say.
Easy when it's not the USA any more.
Treason is not crime anymore in this country. Hanoi Jane Fonda and John Lurch Kerry are living proof.
Please build me a boat that I may escape this infernal country and live once again in freedom and true liberty.
I see few if any heroes who would stand and fight so as to reclaim the liberties we once accepted as those given by God and confirmed by the Constitution of this once great nation that we once honored.
The problem being that we leave to secure freedom for ourselves as Hanoi Jane / John Kerry (and their like) left because they could not secure their control over the freedom of everyone BUT for theirs.
France (as they suggested as their prime choice of residence) is not a country I would consider as a "Free" nation, but rather a country of the 'elite'.
Correction - Sorry about that....
Kerry and Fonda did not LEAVE as we hoped and they threatened.
DAMN!D
Maryland Depopulated “Freak State” PING!
I love the idea of Texas but prefer the alpine mountains of western VA, where I will be in less than a year. The Tax Hell of The Peoples’ Republic of Maryland will be but a distant memory in a short while. Even at the most basic level of comparable taxes, my houses in MD and VA have nearly identical assessed value (actually VA is a bit higher now) property taxes in MD are 4 times higher.
Move to a State where the majority want to secede and become a Constitutional Republic and execute The Plan.
As posted @ #16, she adopted Austrian citizenship, I guess through her father who likely left in the 30s or 40s escaping a gas chamber there.
Rich’s adult children live in London and apparently that’s where she will spend most of her time. Fine by me.
I wonder if people who renounce US citizenship can still visit here, i.e., can she still hobnob with her buddies in NYC/LA, or only in Europe or other spots beyond our borders?
She's got an Austrian Passport through her Dad. To live in GB and elsewhere.
I'm sure Denise would like to get back here and see BJ Clinton occasionally.
One can move from one state to another and renounce his/her citizenship of the state ... but how does one move OUT of the USA without being called a traitor?
Easy, if you are a lib you just renounce your US citizenship.
Doesn’t that graph speak volumes ??
Many have been escaping across the border into Virginia. Our state has been harvesting MD`s business base ever since Bob McDonnell came to office.
MAryland chasing rich democrats to Delaware..
So what... from one sewage drain field to another..
My first and only trip to France was last year. The French government has its fingers in every pie. Every little facet of society was over-regulated and over-taxed then. As bad as this "big government" is, it pales in comparison to the repressive French state. With the new socialist regime in power it will only get worse. I will never go back.
The definition of a traitor is someone who “shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort” at least according to the US constitution. So just giving up your US citizenship in no way meets this definition. So the question is why are you so mad that a few people are bailing on the US for economic reasons? That’s why the vast majority of people moved here, to take advantage of the freedoms and economic prosperity that the US offered at the time.
Well now, thanks to Roberts and various other nanny state do gooders, the US does not offer either the freedom or economic prosperity that it once did. Especially if you are rich, so it makes sense that those who want to keep more of what they’ve got will move on to greener pastures no big deal, live and let live. No need to get your panties in a bunch over it unless you feel that somehow they owe you something. The big deal and what I’m very angry about is all those idiots that have chipped away at my freedom and economic prosperity and made the US a place that people want to leave, those are the people you should be mad at, not the people leaving a sinking ship while they still can.
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