How's that new millionaires tax, passed by a 52 percent to 48 percent margin in November 2022 after a union-backed fraudulent campaign to mislead voters, working out for Massachusetts?
Boston magazine reports, April 17, 2023:
"All my financial adviser pals and I are telling people to leave the state," says Susan Kaplan of Newton's Kaplan Financial Services. "Do not hold philanthropic holdings here; do not start a business here. Do not live in this state."
The Boston Globe reports, April 9, 2023:
Drew Josephson and Andrew Ventura, Compass real estate agents who dub themselves "relocation specialists" in Naples, Fla., say they've seen an uptick in interest from Massachusetts residents in the past few months.
"I have one client who is looking simply because of the millionaires tax in Massachusetts," Ventura said. "An extra 4 percent on their income pays for a house in Naples."...
Some have already made the move. Real estate developer Jim Rappaport said the millionaires tax — along with a "little thing called the weather" — helped prompt his move to Florida. Rappaport, a former state GOP party chairman and former candidate for lieutenant governor, said he decamped to Florida in 2020 in part because the writing was on the wall: He knew the millionaires tax would eventually reach the ballot. And he knows at least 40 couples who have moved to the Sunshine State for similar reasons.
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The income-tax-free haven to the north is attractive too. Mark Dickinson, a real estate investor on the South Shore, said he just scooped up 23 acres in Gilford, N.H., to build a retirement home. He and his wife plan to move as soon as next year....
Jeff Levine, an accountant in Newton, said at least 10 of his clients are considering a true move or at least looking to redomicile — that is, to change their residency for more than half the year. ...
The Boston Herald notes that, now that the referendum passed, legislators suddenly are projecting it will yield $1 billion in revenue. "That's half the $2 billion organizers behind the surtax said it would make annually," the Herald says.
There's a lot of noise in Washington and New York about a congressional candidate who misled voters about his record—talk of overturning the election result, or a criminal investigation, or ethics charges. Where's the outrage about a ballot proposition based on similarly misleading claims? "Fair Share for Massachusetts"—a front group for teachers unions—is the George Santos of New England.
It was entirely predictable that the millionaires tax would result in millionaires leaving the state rather than paying the tax—so predictable that, before the election, I wrote that the revenue claims were falsehoods.
It's something to remember the next time around, when public-employee unions try to push through a tax increase based on static, rather than dynamic, economic projections, estimates that don't account for how the tax increases will affect behavior. Having pocketed the millionaires tax "victory," the so-called progressives in the state are now looking to increase the corporate tax, now 8 percent, to 9.5 percent. That's a step too far for even the liberal Boston Globe, which had editorialized in favor of the millionaires tax. Quoth the Globe, "In today's extremely mobile economic climate, states with the competitive edge get the businesses. If policy makers want to grow the economy and attract employers to Massachusetts, they should not raise the corporate income tax to 9.5 percent. The Commonwealth is in competition with 49 other states to grow and retain businesses and we need to start acting like it."