Posted on 03/18/2014 12:32:30 PM PDT by Hojczyk
New Jersey’s high taxes may be costing the state billions of dollars a year in lost revenue as high-earning residents flee, according to a recent study.
The study, Exodus on the Parkway, was completed by Regent Atlantic last year but held for publication until after the November 2013 elections. The study stated it “intentionally” held its results “as 2014 is not an election year for state legislators” and it will “hopefully encourage a serious and objective dialogue aimed at addressing and solving the challenges that New Jersey currently faces.”
The study shows the state has been steadily losing high-net-worth residents since 2004, when Democratic Gov. Jim McGreevey signed the millionaire’s tax into law. The law raised the state income tax 41 percent on those earning $500,000 or more a year.
“The inception of this tax, coupled with New Jersey’s already high property and estate taxes, leaves no mystery about why the term ‘tax migration’ has become a buzzword among state residents and financial, legal, and political professionals,” the study, conducted by Regent states.
Democrats in New Jersey have been pushing for even higher taxes on the wealthy in recent years. They have failed three times to raise the millionaire’s tax even higher than McGreevey did under threat of a veto by Governor Chris Christie.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“It is probably the property taxes that are the biggest driver.”
Definitely; in my town (not wealthy by any stretch) people pay a small apartment’s rent worth of property taxes EVERY MONTH. People can’t retire here because you pay that long after you own the house outright, and freezing taxes for seniors doesn’t help when they are frozen at $10K+ on a one-family home. Not many people (unless they are retired government workers) can pay nearly $1,000 in property taxes each month when they retire, and you have to pay the higher taxes up front and get a rebate a year later...
“Where is FAT BOI?”
He has at least capped the increases at 2%; before him they went much higher, and many more people lost their homes because of it. Capping them helps you hang onto the home, but results in total loss of services (which we can’t afford anyway). To his credit, Christie’s policies have resulted in mass layoffs (which will continue as long as senior teachers, cops, and firemen don’t make concessions. When the senior gubmint workers get 3 or 4% raises, those will less seniority get pink slips; it was refreshing to see Newark NJ, which doesn’t pay its own workers the way “normal” areas of the state do (using our money instead), lay off 160 cops a couple of years ago. Pictures at the time showed a lot of large-assed gibsmedats in uniform, who weren’t about to put a dent in crime anyway; these jobs in urban areas have just become make-work to redistribute wealth.
More than half of those New Joiseyians vote for the ‘Rats who tax them into oblivion and then they flee/retire/escape to more conservative states only to keep voting for more ‘Rats. Maddening to say the least.
Most of the millionaires in New Jersey and elsewhere are retired public employees whose pensions are hidden from the taxman.
“More than half of those New Joiseyians vote for the ‘Rats who tax them into oblivion and then they flee/retire/escape to more conservative states only to keep voting for more ‘Rats. Maddening to say the least.”
If people look past the sensationalist BS about Christie, they’ll see he has all the right enemies here in NJ; he has fought the teachers’ unions (causing plenty of layoffs), and they are the backbone (and de facto owners) of the Democratic Party.
Sadly, it appears that states which export liberals tend to get even MORE liberal as the replacements are 80% Dem voting immigrants. California is probably the most striking example.
Of course they are! But from what I’ve seen they never learn. They just move to “my state” (Florida) and try to put everything in place the way it was in New Jersey. I dropped out Rotary because in my Central Florida town most of the members were from New Jersey and spend way too much time wanting to change us to be more like the state of confusion they had just left.
They really just don’t get it!
Oh noooooo! Say it ain’t so. We keep hearing from our liberal brethren that good people WANT to share their wealth.
It’s only bad greedy people who will do things to avoid taxes and that’s why the government must discipline them.
New Jersey Democrats must find a way to prevent them from leaving the state by force if necessary.
It’s the old Harry Chapen line; “you travel on 10,000 miles and still stay where you are”. They take their political dysfunction with them. I’d wish they stay in their Socialist Workers Paradise. Next move for us is to a more conservative state where we will fit even better...
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