There's growing talk of rich people leaving Manhattan and Greenwich if the GOP tax plan goes through https://t.co/xiG7N5Ibkl
— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) November 27, 2017
Talk is cheap.
— Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett) November 27, 2017
My Cynical read on the subtext to this Bloomberg article: Cut the crap, Repubs — no matter what your half-dozen addled superdonors and their hordes of think-tank minions believe, you fvck with the New York financial sector, and the *best* outcome is a batch of aggravated aggressive new political funders in swing-state Florida.
Because the people who make a lot of money by living in Manhattan? They do NOT want to live in Miami, whatever the delights of that city. Theoretically you could force them to leave the Big Apple, but all that would accomplish is making enemies of highly motivated individuals who really know how to hold grudges…
… The problem for the Connecticut hedge-fund set — and, more broadly, for a lot of the Wall Street crowd — is that Republican proposals in both the House and Senate would drive up taxes for many high-earners in the New York City area. By eliminating the deduction for most state and local taxes, an individual making a yearly salary of $1,000,000 — a figure not uncommon in the financial industry — would owe the Internal Revenue Service an additional $21,000, according to a preliminary analysis by accounting firm Marcum LLP…
A final bill could still do away with the hike, but so far there are no signs coming out of Washington that will happen. Financially struggling New Jersey had the sixth-highest individual income rate this year, according to the Federation of Tax Administrators. New York ranked eighth and cash-strapped Connecticut 12th. Nine of the 10 states with the highest individual taxes, including Washington, D.C., voted Democratic in the 2016 presidential election.
No one interviewed for this story would talk openly about making plans to move, but Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is estimating that New York City alone could lose as much as 4 percent of its top earners if the bill becomes law. In Florida, where there’s no state income tax, there’s the sense that this is a great opportunity to lure disgruntled tax refugees….
Frustration was high among commuters in the northern New Jersey suburb of Summit early one recent morning. They know there’ll be little sympathy for them across the country and they aren’t necessarily ready to pack up and move, but they’re ticked off.
“Most people in this community don’t need a decrease, but I don’t think it’s right to have more taxes taken out and be told it’s a tax cut,” said Gary Bakalar, head of client relationships at insurer XL Catlin in New York. “I’m a lifelong Republican and this is starting to make me question the wisdom of that.”
I say this as someone who was born in Manhattan, and who got the hell out as soon as was legally possible: Living with NYCers is like living with a mixed pack of pit bulls, border collies, and Jack Russell terriers. Even if you love the individual components, it’s an ongoing, non-stop challenge. Living with a bunch of rich, successful NYCers who don’t want to be living with you is… well, doesn’t the current involuntary migration of pissed-off, desperate Puerto Ricans seem like enough punishment, even for Rick “Lizard Person” Scott?
To avoid $21k in NYC taxes million dollar earners move to Miami, where they’ll be under water in a few decades; the rich aren’t geniuses https://t.co/J3aotfjHec
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) November 27, 2017
Hyperbole aside, it’s very true that the wealthy have few places to go https://t.co/2KFT3ijNR5
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 27, 2017
So few seats on the escape shuttle https://t.co/GGSlrUHXiQ
— Zeddy ( me [ person ] ) (@ZeddRebel) November 27, 2017
Open Thread: The Sorrows of the Everyday MillionairePost + Comments (152)