The Homa Files

According to new Census data reported in the WSJ …

New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island led the country last year in “out-migration” (measured as a share of their population).

The Tax Foundation ranks New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island among the five worst business tax climates.

Connecticut, which raised income, sales and corporate taxes last year to the tune of $1.5 billion, is not far behind.

Illinois also increased income taxes last year by 67% and the corporate rate by 46% and will likely seek to hike taxes again to backfill the state pension fund, which is $83 billion in arrears.

Where are they going?

The most popular destination state by far was North Dakota, followed by Wyoming, South Carolina, Texas, Colorado, Florida, Arizona, South Dakota, Nevada and Tennessee.

Five of these states—Texas, Florida, Nevada, Wyoming and South Dakota—have no income tax, and all but Colorado are right-to-work states.

These states are also adding jobs at a faster clip than those losing residents (Unemployment has actually ticked up in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut over the past year).

Hmmm.

If Warren Buffett is right that tax rates don’t much matter, how can you explain the exodus from blue states to low-tax havens?

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This entry was posted on December 28, 2012 at 6:34 am and is filed under Tax burden, Taxes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.