Minnesota under Dayton will soon be joining California and New York as the highest taxed states in the country and will predictably see an exodus of businesses and higher income citizens to other states. Average Minnesotans will also be making buying trips to neighboring lower tax states for everything from liquor to medical care. I expect Sioux Falls, SD, a scant 10 miles from the Minnesota border, will see a boom as Minnesotans flock to our malls and businesses rather than go to Minneapolis.
Minnesota risks isolation as tax capital of the Midwest
. . . A 2011 Ernst & Young report found that 95 percent of Minnesota employers are organized as pass-through companies, usually Sub-S corporations, LLCs, partnerships or sole proprietorships, and other small operations that pay their taxes as individual filers. The same study found that 56 percent of all employees in the state work for those small businesses. The governor has suggested that only the elite would pay more under his plan. But that isn't true. His plan would raise taxes on likely thousands of the most successful small employers who provide a lot of jobs, and the result will be fewer jobs and less investment in Minnesota.
Millions of Americans are evacuating high-tax states in favor of places that seem to want them more. According to the Tax Foundation, for example, which analyzes data from the IRS and the Census, Minnesota suffered a net loss of 36,000 income tax filers between 2000 and 2010. Those income taxpayers took with them $3.5 billion in adjusted gross income, money that is now circulating in other states.
The biggest winner has been Florida, which doesn't tax income. In the last decade, according to the foundation, Minnesota's net loss of income taxpayers to the Sunshine State was more than 9,000. Our neighbors left with $1.6 billion in adjusted gross income that they're now spending, saving and investing in Florida. Does the governor believe that the outbound migration won't accelerate under his plan, which also includes the punitive snowbird penalty? On what basis does he believe that?
There has been an exodus already out of MN, but the politicians are denying and outright lying about it. They continue to say that the state of MN has not lost anyone due to the economy or taxes.
I laugh at that and can prove they are liars. Hubby & I left a little over a year ago as we saw the handwriting on the wall
Moved to the great state of Wyoming and while I will say Minnesota has great beauty, so does Wyoming.
We are classified as one of those "higher income" citizens, plus we own a small business, but I know they refuse to acknowledge that we left because of the oppressive taxes.
We never minded paying our "fair share", but the welfare zombies are taking over the state -- fair share now means, give us 99% of what you have and we will let you keep the 1% (ok, slight exaggeration, but then again, maybe not in a year or so).
Hudson, La Crosse and Superior WI as well.
Fargo ND as well I’d bet.