Now We're earing $30 million and $40,000 dollars
The timing is coincidental, I swear--I like Barone, unlike, say, Noonan--but this is an uncomfortable headline and argument:"Americans Keep Moving to States With Low Taxes and Housing Costs".
And it's not just the headline. Barone makes the argument clear: "The movement from high-tax, high-housing-cost states to low-tax, low-housing-cost states has been going on for more than 40 years, as I note in my new book Shaping Our Nation: How Surges of Migration Transformed America and Its Politics"
I'm as low tax as they come (have you noticed Michael Feldman making snide Ted Cruz jokes? I think the man has arrived), but I don't quite get this.
Housing is probably, what, 20 percent of your budget if you're lucky, 40 percent if not.
And your state tax? 6 percent? 7 percent (Sorry, LAGuy.) Maybe give Barone the benefit of the doubt and include local tax too, so say 10 percent to 15 percent.
It just seems a little bit of a stretch to lump tax in with housing. If you want to say the low tax contributes to a better economy, okay, I'll buy that, even though my BWF won't accept it, but surely jobs and housing overwhelm it in absolute terms.
posted by ColumbusGuy @ 5:00 AM
3 Comments:
If rich people see a five percent or more differential on taxes between states. amounting to millions over the years, I think they might vote with their feet. And if they take their businesses with them, others follow.
In fact, I know of at least a couple "tax exiles" who left certain states in part to escape high taxes (and not just income taxes).
Taxes are no doubt one of many costs to consider as is the opportunity costs associated with living in low tax havens. A confused jumble of data which I'm sure can be expertly manipulated to support pretty much any proposition
The wealthy absolutely take tax into account. A few years ago I moved a Colorado Trust to Wy. precisely because the beneficiaries realized they were paying hundreds of thousands in state taxes for no reason. The trust had interests in COLO, but also several other states. Nothing really in WY, but that was the closest low/no tax state, and becoming a WY Trust only required holding one meeting a year in the state - well worth it for the savings.
My parents also left NY for Florida primarily to stop paying NY income taxes on their retirement earnings. They also looked at Nevada and WY, but didn't like the dry climate.
As for me, I plan on retiring to WY, with a winter place in FL (probably my parents' home).
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