The wealthy tax exodus (the evidence)

by pdxblake

Offered without comment from the Tax Justice Network (ht Mark Thoma):

In a population of 65 million we have one confirmed departure, one effort to leave… We see kind of story this again and again: hyperventilating threats from a country’s wealthiest citizens that they will depart in droves if they have to pay higher taxes – yet when their bluff is called they fail to act – but still keep on grousing and issuing the threats. It’s tiresome. …

One of the best testing grounds for the ‘tax migration’ theory is among individual states in the United States, which each levy variable state taxes … and where cross-state migration is far easier than moving, say, to a different country…

And here the evidence is unambiguous. Take this Stanford paper, for instance, which finds ‘negligible’ effects from a large state tax hike in New Jersey. Or this ITEP paper entitled “Where Have All of Maryland’s Millionaires Gone?… Or this, on New York, or this, on Oregon.