Exodus: Citizens flee New York for low-tax red states

By Chris White

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other public officials from blue states are blaming President Donald Trump’s tax overhaul for people moving to Texas and Florida where the tax burden is less burdensome.

The Democratic governor said Monday that changes to the federal tax law resulted in his state losing $2.3 billion in tax revenue. The 2017 law capping deduction for state and local taxes at $10,000 is the reason for the shortfall and immigration out of the state, he said at a press conference.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo

“That’s a $2.3 billion drop in revenues. That’s as serious as a heart attack. This is worse than we had anticipated,” Cuomo said. “I don’t believe raising taxes on the rich. That would be the worst thing to do. You would just expand the shortfall. God forbid if the rich leave.” He called the decision to cap deductions “a diabolical political maneuver” designed to help red states.

Officials in other northeastern states are also blaming the tax bill for depleted tax revenues, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. New Jersey reported a 35 percent drop in income-tax revenue for December 2018 compared with in 2017.

Connecticut officials made similar complaints. Trump’s tax reforms could drag down revenues later in the year, according to Connecticut’s Comptroller Kevin Lembo. States such as Florida and Texas have reaped the benefits as New Yorkers flee. The ease of working remotely and the tax burden are driving the mass migration.

Florida had the highest level of net migration from July 2017 to July 2018, while New York was the largest overall population loser, with Illinois bringing up the rear, WSJ reported. Florida also gained 231,000 jobs in 2018, a nearly 3 percent increase over the previous year. The sate’s unemployment rate fell to 3.3 percent in December.

“A lot of rich people are trying to find a way out of New York,” Barry Horowitz, an accountant who specializes in helping clients switch residency to lower-tax states, told reporters Monday. Horowitz receives a call a week from wealthy people looking to leave their state, a significant uptick from before the tax bill.

California has been hit especially hard over the years. The state’s high housing prices and rising gas prices are driving away what remains of the state’s low income citizens. Those migrating from the coastal state are making their way for places like Las Vegas and Arizona, where housing prices are relatively cheap compared to California.

The Golden State saw a loss of over 138,000 people in that 12-month period, according to the data, while Texas experienced an uptick of more than 79,000 people. Arizona and Nevada, meanwhile, gained more than 63,000 and 38,000 residents, respectively. California’s extraordinarily high gas taxes is another reason for the mass exodus.

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Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Bob Jagendorf and Metropolitan Transportation Authority

16 thoughts on “Exodus: Citizens flee New York for low-tax red states

  1. I am one of those statistics who left New York. Republicans were specifically told by Cuomo that we were not welcome there. So I obliged. The federal tax law he cites is aimed at the wealthy. Now he’s crying because the wealthy are also leaving New York. But not just wealthy Republicans, Democrats too. What happened to Cuomo’s Democrat mantra of taxing the wealthy? Trump did it for him.

    • R.Jorgensen Seems I missed this speech. I grew up under standing I was a Citizen, now as a great grandfather, I am referred to as just a Costumer.

  2. The danger is that those who flee these high tax states will forget why they had to leave and take the failed ideology of VT, CT, NY or other high tax states to their new home, starting the whole cycle again.

  3. Wonder if anyone in NY ever thought of living within their means so they wouldn’t have to tax at such a high level. Now, as they say, the chickens are coming home to roost. As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

  4. Como and the demtard legislature should have took Margaret Thatcher’s quote a little more seriously:
    “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money” or maybe more in their case run off the people with money…

  5. Permitting federal taxpayers to exempt from their income the taxes paid to states is a pass-through subsidy to the high taxed states paid for by the federal taxes on the population in general – insofar as it is a reduction in federal revenue that permits high taxed states to derive revenue for expenditures that do not benefit the taxpayers outside the state. The federal government is effectively ‘paying’ more to the taxpayers in high taxed states to give money to those states.

  6. I grew up in NYS and still own real estate on Long Island. I lived in Vermont for 7 years up in the NEK. I now live in Florida. There is no income tax, no estate tax, no inheritance tax, no tax on interest and dividends. I have rental properties that I rent out to hard working people who don’t have a whole bunch of money at the end of the month. The entire northeast is headed for very hard times with the leadership that comes from one party. If a carbon tax is approved by NYS or VT, there will be traffic jams on every highway heading south.
    The property tax on real estate in the NE is choking everyone.

  7. Fleeing to low tax red state was a prudent fiscal decision my family made. My wallet and kids college funds very much appreciate it. Both of which where full of spider webs in VT.

  8. They are fleeing New Yorkistan because of taxes and the Marxists in control of the state.
    The merry Marxists in Montpelier could take a hint but they won’t in their zeal to be just like New Yorkistan..

  9. “The Democratic governor said Monday that changes to the federal tax law resulted in his state losing $2.3 billion in tax revenue.”

    Can anyone explain why this is ? Vermont would have seen an INCREASE in revenue due to the fed changes had they not adjusted the tax code. I doubt this NY drop has much to do with the fed tax bill. The underlying reasons for leaving NY have been there for a long time.

    For those who are close to retirement, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Georgia either have no tax on retirement income or large exclusions. Texas and Florida are not the only beneficiaries of this migration.

    • “The underlying reasons for leaving NY have been there for a long time”

      Of course it has, but with the federal government/red states subsidizing the high tax blue states the complete impact of their spending wasn’t being felt, the same goes for the tax bill. The state was pulling the wool over their eyes, and that wool was the write off that USES to be allowed.

  10. “California’s extraordinarily high gas taxes is another reason for the mass exodus.”

    Bring on the carbon taxes VT, it’ll be the nail the coffin then perhaps you can start over on firm ground.

    Nothing like an additional 88 cents/gallon every time you fill that work truck up.

    Don’t forget the added cost on your heating bill … ouch.

    • All you’ll have left are chiefs.The injuns will make a beeline for NH.
      Cheifs don’t like washing dishes,cutting grass,plowing snow,or especially digging of any kind.

      Whatcha gon do?

    • The Vermont Comprehensive Energy Plan, CEP, goal aims to “transform” the Vermont economy. It would require investments of about $33.3 billion, about $1 billion per year for 33 years, during the 2017 – 2050 period, per Vermont Energy Action Network 2015 Annual Report. The CEP could not be implemented without a very high carbon tax and other taxes, surcharges and fees of at least $970 million per year for 33 years.

      Carbon Tax Impact On A Typical Vermont Family, as reported on VTDigger:

      Any tax, including a carbon tax, passing through the hands of government suffers from “the sticky fingers syndrome”, 2 dollars go in about 1.5 dollars come out. The difference stays to feed the growing government bureaucracy.

      The key word missing in most discussions is UNILATERAL. VT’s government imposing on Vermonters a unilateral carbon tax is like shooting them in the feet.

      If the carbon tax were nationwide, I would support it.

      The carbon tax would:

      – Impose a $10/ton tax of carbon emitted in 2017, increasing to $100/ton in 2027.
      – Generate about $100 million in state revenue in 2019, about $520 million in 2027.
      – Be added to the fuel prices at gas stations and fuel oil/propane dealers.
      – Drivers should expect a tax increase of 9 c/gal of gasoline in 2018, increasing to about 89 cents in 2027.
      – Homeowners, schools, hospitals, businesses, etc., should expect a tax increase of 58 c/gal of propane and $1.02/gal of heating oil and diesel fuel in 2027.
      – A typical household (two wage earners, two cars, in a free-standing house) would pay additional taxes in 2027 of about:
      – Some of the carbon tax extortion would be at the pump, some when the monthly fuel bills arrive, and some as higher prices of OTHER goods and services.

      Driving = $0.89/gal x 2 x 12000 miles/y x 1/(30 miles/gal) = $712/y
      Heating = $1.02/gal x 800 gal/y = $816/y
      Total carbon tax in 2027 = $1528/y
      Sales tax reduction 5/6 x 1400 = $233/y
      Net tax increase = $1295/y

      – The hypocritical sop of reducing the sales tax from 6 to 5 percent would save that household about $233 in sales taxes, for a net loss of $1295 in 2027. That means such households, the backbone of the Vermont economy, would have about $1300/y less to make ends meet.
      – Many of these households have had stagnant or declining, spendable real incomes (after taxes, fees, surcharges; other recurring expenses, etc.), plus dealing with a near-zero, real-growth Vermont economy, since 2000.
      – With less real income, and higher real prices for goods and services, they also would have to make their own energy efficiency improvements.

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