“Cities and states across the country are looking at ways to wring more revenue from their richest taxpayers.
"Cristobal Young, a Cornell University sociologist, and Ithai Lurie of the Treasury Department analyzed 3.9 million individual tax filings for top earners over seven years for a coming paper in the American Journal of Sociology. They looked at the rate of movement before and after the 2017 federal tax law. That overhaul made it costlier to live in high-tax states such as New York and California because of a new cap it put on deductions for state and local taxes, or SALT.
“They found that those with annual incomes of at least $1 million facing higher taxes were no more likely to move in the two years following the 2017 tax change than peers in lower-tax states. Millionaires who were highly “embedded” in their communities—for example, those owning a local business or having children at home—were less likely to move in general. They also found that when millionaires did move, they tended to opt for lower-tax states.
“Young said ties—and the strength of those ties—matter. ‘Money should make mobility happen, but moving your home is not fun,” he said. “It’s really costly in terms of uprooting yourself.’"
