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The Nation's Pulse
We’re Picking Up Good Migrations
The IRS backs down on concealing the number of people fleeing high-tax states.
If you run a high-tax, budget-busting state, the embarrassing government statistics you fear the most are probably the migratory data numbers put out by the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Census Bureau.
The figures show the number of people moving into and out of every county and state in the nation, along with their income levels. It’s an invaluable guide to how people vote with their feet. It won’t surprise you to learn they tend to flee high-tax states such as California and Illinois for low-tax states such as Texas and Florida.
No one knows who was behind it, but the IRS suddenly decided in December to end the data program after 21 years. “We were just told this morning that the program is indeed going to be discontinued,” an IRS economist said in an e-mail obtained by the Daily Caller. “It is not our decision at all, and we are very disappointed.”
After some criticism, the IRS at first admitted the program was being “discontinued.”
IRS officials told the Washington Examiner that scholars and citizens could instead rely on the Census Bureau’s geographical mobility data, which is derived from two surveys of the population. But as the Examiner noted, surveys are not hard data: “It would be as if the federal government cancelled elections and the counting of actual votes and told us to use opinion polls to pick our leaders instead.”
California’s bureaucratic-industrial complex was no doubt pleased. Following the November passage of a tax increase by voters, Californians will now be paying the nation’s highest marginal tax rates. The top state income tax rate is now 13.3 percent. If the Bush tax cuts are not extended, the effective marginal tax rate on a high-income Californian will be nearly 52 percent, according to one study. Such a tax burden would be even higher than New York City’s.
California’s progressive income tax system has long been criticized for being overly dependent on a small sliver of the population, fewer than 200,000 high-income earners, whose salaries, capital gains, and dividend income keep the state afloat. Golfer Tiger Woods left California for income tax–free Florida years ago, and inventor Gilbert Hyatt has packed up for Nevada to avoid taxes on his royalties.
What the IRS migratory data program did was put statistical meat on those anecdotal bones. The Manhattan Institute released a report last year entitled “The Great California Exodus” that used the IRS data to show just how many people of all income levels are fleeing the Golden State.
The report found that since 1990, California has lost nearly 3.4 million residents to other states. (The top 10 destinations were Texas, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Georgia, and South Carolina.) Over the last decade, an average of 225,000 residents left the state each year.
The Manhattan Institute concluded: “States that have gained the most at California’s expense are rated as having better business climates. The data suggest that many cost drivers—taxes, regulations, the high price of housing and commercial real estate, costly electricity, union power and high labor costs—are prompting businesses to locate outside California, thus helping to drive the exodus.”
Nor is California the only state exporting productive citizens and businesses. Last May, the New York Post headlined a story, “Outgoing income: Millions flee New York’s tax burden$.” The article, which relied heavily on the IRS numbers, began “New York state tops the nation in one key export—people fleeing high taxes.”
Other jurisdictions aren’t far behind. Change Maryland, a free-market think tank, used the IRS data to discover that 11,455 Marylanders changed their places of residence to lower-cost Virginia between 2007 and 2010 after Democratic governor Martin O’Malley dramatically hiked income taxes. The loss of tax revenue to Maryland totaled $390 million. In total, more than 31,000 Maryland residents took a hike and shifted their tax filing status in those three years. But Jim Pettit of Change Maryland said it would be impossible to continue tracking those figures without the IRS data. It sure sounded as if some liberal state officeholders might have leaned on the Obama administration to spare them some “inconvenient facts” about the consequences of their policies.
BUT THIS STORY has a happy ending. After much criticism that it was “airbrushing” data out of existence, the IRS apparently reversed course. Officials, in a classic case of bureaucratic gobbledygook, claimed the migration data program wasn’t really ending: “To improve data quality, the methodology for collecting and tabulating the population migration data was recently changed.”
Policies affect human behavior. As economist Arthur Laffer observes: “You have two locations, A and B. If you raise taxes in B and you lower them in A, producers and manufacturers and people are going to move from B to A.”
About the Author
John H. Fund is a senior editor of The American Spectator and author of the Stealing Elections (Encounter Books).
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Job| 1.31.13 @ 7:17AM
Shame there’s no migratory data numbers put out by the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Census Bureau going back to the 1500’s we might know why the Mayans all left.
Blaze| 1.31.13 @ 7:20AM
Not so sure this is a "happy ending." The IRS said they will continue to release the data but that "the methodology for collecting and tabulating the population migration data was recently changed.” Is it possible they decided that they should keep releasing the data under "new rules" so they can manipulate it as they have done with the unemployment data?
Purp| 1.31.13 @ 7:58AM
Conservatives are like dogs with a bone. Once they latch onto an idea, they never let go.
The move of people to Florida and Texas (and other Sun Belt States ) was for warmer climate over the last 50 years. Now we have this little gem that just so happens to fit with the Conservadums dream of low taxes somewhere, anywhere.
In many of those "low tax" States, education is poor, healthcare is terrible, and wages are depressed for the majority of the population. All a result of "low taxes". You get what you pay for.
Why don't you talk about that?
GobBluthe| 1.31.13 @ 8:50AM
And yet the state of WA saw its population grow enough to add another congressional district. A cold rainy state grew faster than the average growth of the national population. Was it the cold and rain that attracted people to WA, or was it the LACK OF AN INCOME TAX.
Purp| 2.1.13 @ 1:03AM
The 7 States with no income tax:
Alaska Florida Nevada South Dakota Texas
Washington Wyoming
In addition, New Hampshire and Tennessee have limited income taxes.
Only 3 in the South, the rest in the COLD... hardly hugely populated States, most of them. So not really evident of a major population shift, is it?
nevertheless:
Will I Pay Less Taxes Overall in These States?
Not necessarily. States need revenue to function, and these states will have to make up for the lack of income tax somehow. New Hampshire and Texas, for example, make up for it in property taxes. Both states have some of the highest property taxes in the nation. Florida charges huge taxes on the hospitality industry as a vacation destination they make plenty.
So you don't have the whole story, do you?
GobBluthe| 1.31.13 @ 8:55AM
Low tax states see income, wage and population growth faster than higher tax states. I forgot to include on your list of backward low tax states in addition to WA, NH. Another hick, uneducated low tax state.
Weather has nothing to do with migration to low tax states. CA for the first time since 1850, didn't add a new congressional district. My projection is by 2030 CA will begin losing congressional districts. Who has a better weather climate than CA?
Purp| 2.1.13 @ 1:05AM
So Calif had over 150 years of continual growth and now, the ONLY reason they don't is what you believe?
Good Grief. You are quite arrogant, aren't you?
Jack in Wi| 1.31.13 @ 9:11AM
South Dakota has no income tax and is doing well. I don't know about North Dakota, on income taxes, but it is booming and has low taxes as well. Alaska alos has no inclome tax. In my state Wi we have always been a high tax state. We went from an industrial powerhouse 100 years ago to a low wage state. All those taxes and money spent on government made us poorer. Hopefully we are changing for the better.
John Navratil| 1.31.13 @ 9:34AM
Purp,
"Conservatives are like dogs with a bone. Once they latch onto an idea, they never let go."
Well that clearly doesn't describe you. Such an agile thinker as you will latch onto any idea to make a point whether grounded in fact or not.
I suppose the French millionaires are moving to London and Belgium for the weather.
Purp| 2.1.13 @ 1:10AM
Everything I say is grounded in fact and I can provide links to factual proof. Can you?
You use millionaires, who can live anywhere, do whatever they will, and have no allegiance to anyone or anything but money as evidence the entire population is moving? Seriously? Even for you, isn't that a bit of a stretch?
Why aren't you outraged that the States that provided their wealth will be cheated by their selfish attitude?
Didn't it bother you that one of the FaceBook founders gave up their US Citizenship to save on taxes after he made his money in the US? Don't you believe in your country? Aren't you patriotic?
And, why do you side with the millionaire parasites that do the same to the society that made them wealthy?
And, no, they didn't build it all by themselves. They had plenty of help. All of them.
PolishKnight| 1.31.13 @ 9:36AM
Hahahaha! And they call conservatives the reactionaries, Purp! Looks like your knee is jerking this morning.
As someone else pointed out, few places have a better climate than California and it's looking a lot like Mexico which is a warm weather version of Detroit.
In addition, with manmade global warming going on shouldn't Florida become too hot while people would flee for northern climes? Oh, wait, manmade global warming isn't working out. It's hilarious to watch the leftists freeze to death during their global warming protests (hint: Hold them in Florida before it freezes too!)
Hahahaha!
Purp| 2.1.13 @ 1:13AM
So you're happy for an American State to be having troubles?
If you really are worried about Florida, research the Maldive Islands who's nation will be underwater by mid-century due to Climate Change. Florida might not be far behind. Aren't you afraid now? Isn't that all that motivates Conservadums?
PolishKnight| 1.31.13 @ 9:47AM
"Conservatives are like dogs with a bone. Once they latch onto an idea, they never let go."
This is worthy of a separate response.
It's the left that is in love with a philosophy of Karl Marx written more than a century ago that praised white, working class men. Later during the 60's, the idealized end-goal society of the left was to make the world into Sweden.
Purp, your third worlder, Detroit and suburban sprawl limosine liberal hellhole is about as far away from Sweden as one can get. But you still like to pretend like it'll get there someday but in the meantime, you just bash white males to try to feel important even as white male conservatives have a lot more in common with ol' Karl Marx than most Democrat voters ever will.
So whose holding onto the bone?
Purp| 2.1.13 @ 1:16AM
Marxist theory is dead - except in Conservadum circles. You try to paint your opponents with what you think is that worst brush you can - it doesn't work, and it simply shows how out of touch you are with reality.
By the way - how's that NeoCon vision of democracy in the Middle East coming along? How many people died for your folly?
Hahahaha... and you call me names?
DerKrieger| 1.31.13 @ 10:22AM
So CA has weather that needs to be fled? Explain.
Otis, my man!| 1.31.13 @ 10:33AM
Oh yeah, San Diego, worst climate in the country right?
And frozen no-tax New Hampshire, no one ever moves there, do they?
sickofit5| 1.31.13 @ 10:50AM
Liberals are like dogs with a bone. Once they latch onto an idea, they never let go. Like the more money you put into education the better results. The best I can find for California is that they are ranked 30th. According to Education Week both Florida and Texas and even Louisiana are ranked above California. In Texas both San Antonio and Houston have world renowned medical centers. Because Texas is a right to work state wages are competitive in the global market.
Continue to curse the darkness Purp. I live in the great state of Texas. It is clear you live in the pathetic state of denial.
PolishKnight| 1.31.13 @ 11:16AM
Just as leftists moved to the suburbs and drove around in hypocrite mobiles to their bureaucratic office jobs, Purp will probably someday look for a liberal haven in Texas (I think it's Austin now?) and escape the consequences of his philosophy's actions (like locusts.)
It's amusing that despite the left ragging on about global warming that they tend to live, California exempted, in cold states where high gas and heating oil prices affects them disproportionately. At least the poor working folks who work for a living they like to claim to care about (but secretly mock and despise.)
But Purp is probably not so lucky since I suspect he lives in his mother's basement and fetches books at Borders (one of the few stores still open at least.) Most of the successful, remaining leftists don't have time to post to forums here. They like to gab about their fake religion at backyard BBQ's among other hypocrites.
Purp| 2.1.13 @ 1:19AM
You need to study HARDER ... Texas is NOT a healthcare mecca. 25% of Texans have NO health insurance. You can look up the rest.
Of course, you have to look at facts, not Right-Wing Busllshit.
PetePatriot| 1.31.13 @ 1:40PM
Leftists live in a fantasy world where people's economic behavior isn't influenced by their tax environment and people don't vote with their feet. This is not surprising given that they think that profits are evil and shouldn't play a role in an economy. They think that people gladly pay exorbitant taxes for the common good and that they get up each morning to work hard in order to make a difference regardless of whether they get paid or not.
A desire to play golf year round prompted me to move from Taxachusetts. Southern California and Arizona looked inviting but Florida won because of low taxes and living costs. An added bonus was that my vote counts here. I am no longer "represented" by the likes of Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Barney Frank. They are all gone but their replacements are equally bad: Elizabeth Warren, William Cowan, and Joseph Kennedy III.
Northern liberals moving here and bringing their stupid ideas with them is a real problem. How someone could move here from a basket case state like Michigan and keep voting Democrat is a mystery.
Purp| 2.1.13 @ 1:21AM
Why did so many move from the South to the North 100 years ago? Was that to escape taxes?
Why is the South still considered hayseeds and toothless?
Why do Southerners still believe in "Slow Time"?
Rhoetus| 1.31.13 @ 8:08AM
Purp, Just write a bigger check to the US Treasury - you too can have a 90% marginal tax rate!
Purp| 2.1.13 @ 1:17AM
I follow the law - how about you?
JimH| 1.31.13 @ 8:22AM
Many of the movers, having fouled their original nests with debt and taxes proceed to try to do it again in their new homes. They seem to think that they can have the government goodies and this time only some other guys will be taxed for it.
c. j. acworth| 1.31.13 @ 10:03AM
And that is what I'm seeing here in NH. I escaped from the Peoples Republic of Connecticut 25 years ago to what was a state that still exhibited a certain rock-ribbed New England commonsenseicalness. Unfortunately I was followed by too many others from CT, who also dragged some from MA as they roared up I91. Now we're a purple state. I've been thinking of retiring in TX, but I'm afraid you Texans will keep me out. I seem to attract the wrong type.
Maxwell| 1.31.13 @ 8:51AM
New Jersey should have been included in this review. With the high property tax, standing room only in central Jersey, anti gun environment, and Winters, we will be moving South in a couple three years. I have read in to many places that both Jersey and New York are loosing people too
As I banter on many gun boards with others that already live in the South, the one phrase I hear all to often is, don't bring the liberal North East attitude with you & tell us how it should be done. Trust me, I'm not.
DerKrieger| 1.31.13 @ 10:29AM
As an Arkansan I can tell you that we Southerners hostility towards the new generation of carpetbaggers is growing. We're getting sick of northern Liberals moving down here to change things.
I live in a retirement town with a bunch of northern granola crunching retirees. They just managed to block the building of a new Walmart Neighborhood Market to preserve the local, inefficient, employee owned grocery store. The owner of the land had it legally zoned fr commercial and Walmart was ready to build. The local Lefties were able to get an issue on the ballot to overturn the land rights of the landowner. And this is in the hometown of Walmart.
GobBluthe| 1.31.13 @ 8:57AM
Illinois doesn't have that high personal income taxes. 5% flat up from 3%. Business taxes are high and in the Chicago area sales taxes top 10%. Property taxes very from high in Chicago area to reasonable downstate.
cicero| 1.31.13 @ 9:40AM
In the '50s, Michigan was an economic powerhouse, with an educational system that was second to maybe only California. Since then, taxes and beaurocracy have increased dramatically. Our educational system stinks, even though we have one of the highest compensated education classes in the country. Our industrial economy is in the tank, even though we were home to some of the highest paid unskilled workers in the world. Now, we have a conservative governor who is trying to get a handle on things, and return us to some sort of fiscal sanity, and the unions (teachers, police/fire, industrial workers), are calling for his head. Can tragedy be far behind? Hurray for me - screw you.
PolishKnight| 1.31.13 @ 9:50AM
I have an ebook with almost all of Philip K Dick's short stories and he likes to write about a future in 2050 where the world revolves around... Detroit. If only he were alive today, eh? Guys with a family and kids waiting at home doing their homework commute to work in their flying cars (sometimes to Ganymede and get home by supper, I am not making this up!) Now compare and contrast that vision to modern Detroit (Hardcore Pawn.) Hilarious.
John Navratil| 1.31.13 @ 10:24AM
PolishKnight,
I loved "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and Ridley Scott's interpretation in "Blade Runner". I confess I didn't read the story until after I saw the film, but it did thread me onto Philip K. Dick.
PolishKnight| 1.31.13 @ 10:34AM
If you want my contact info, I can loan you my ebook with all the short stories. It's truly an amspec conservative readers' heaven: The characters almost ALL smoke (I think it's because he got paid by the word so having them light up got him a few bucks just in filler material), the wives are all submissive and children ALL live at home! And there's FLYING CARS!!!
I'm the 50th short story out of 130 in the book. They are typically only about 20 to 30 pages long.
John Navratil| 1.31.13 @ 1:33PM
PolishKnight,
Thanks for the offer! I'll remember it, but at the moment I am upside-down for time.
rjh| 1.31.13 @ 9:59AM
No surprise that they would attempt to do away with such data...it illustrates the failure of expensive, bloated governments in liberal states.
PolishKnight| 1.31.13 @ 10:15AM
To paraphrase The Wolf in Pulp Fiction: "Let's not start sucking each other's **** just yet."
In theory, if you look at "red state" America, conservatives should DOMINATE the house. But they don't. Also, although liberal states are killing manufacturing and the revenue generating private sector, they have a second wind via polluted Asian sweatshops working on borrowed money and, again, tons of government jobs for their elites via borrowed money.
"Back, back back in the USSR!!!"
Well, at least the USSR had a manufacturing sector albeit an awful one.
DerKrieger| 1.31.13 @ 10:21AM
Low tax, business friendly Red state politics is a two edged sword. On one side are the obvious economic benefits yet on the other is the migration of stupid Liberals incapable of connecting their support for Democrats with the economic destruction those Democrats wreak upon their states.
These economic migrants, having learned nothing, continue their ignorant voting habits and gradually transform their Red state haven. One need only look at what has happened to NC and VA. Both were formerly reliably Red, but both are now purple.
How can we encourage migration of conservatives but keep out the locust swarm of Liberals?
John Navratil| 1.31.13 @ 10:25AM
DerKrieger,
Open carry laws?
DerKrieger| 1.31.13 @ 10:31AM
Here's my recommendation http://www.redstate.com/derkri.....e-redoubt/
Basically make Red states hostile to Liberals and Liberalism.
Al Adab| 1.31.13 @ 11:23AM
Citizens retain the right to vote with their feet. If they and businesses leave high tax/high regulation states for more attractive economic environments, shouldn't the governments learn from reality and act accordingly? CA recently enacted an "exit tax" on businesses leaving the state to relocate elsewhere. Texas and I think Utah have welcomed such and offer to pay the tax on behalf of any relocating to their states. Recall what the Fed govt. did to Boeing when that company planned to build a plant in NC. Recall how this administration is using regulatory agencies to punish states like AZ that opposed administration policies.
PolishKnight| 1.31.13 @ 11:51AM
No, Al Adab, we can't vote with our feet. If you attempt to move to another nation and renounce your citizenship, the Soviet republic retains the right to demand you still pay taxes for the privilege of having been a Soviet citizen.
This has been in place a long time even during the Reagan era. While I admire Reagan, what he accomplished is eclipsed by all he DIDN'T do or even attempt to firmly address: The marriage penalty, stuff like that, and the divorce courts among others.
If conservatives don't really propose much of anything then they truly become the party of no that is too much trouble to drag yourself out of bed to vote for.
Al Adab| 1.31.13 @ 1:09PM
Assuming I follow your comment, US = USSR, we still retain the ability to go state to state to avoid state taxes and regulations. Some, even today WY and AZ are considering legislation to exempt themselves from fed gun regs, are much better environments for liberty than others.
Tom Kyba| 1.31.13 @ 12:34PM
Stop calling Mexico California.
Arnie| 1.31.13 @ 1:08PM
The blue states are safer, have better education, better salaries, better health, better universities, state and private.
Wyoming is safe, but nobody lives there, and the few that do like to beat gays. Kansas has fine basketball. The South has the SEC. That's about it.
The red states, like all the southern red ones, are a bunch of losers. They've held that loser title since the Civil War by the way.
Al Adab| 1.31.13 @ 1:10PM
Depends on your measurement criteria. Personally I find low taxes, less regulation and more freedom outweighs how many "government bennies" I could claim.
PolishKnight| 1.31.13 @ 1:16PM
Wait a minute here. Hahahaha!
Let's start out with the "better education" argument. Compare and contrast teachers' salaries (and student performance) in DC with that of, say, anywhere in the red states.
Better salaries? Sure. But then you have a higher cost of living and taxes to go with it so it's a wash. And more of that money comes not from actual production (manufacturing or private services or even tourism) but rather from ponzi government spending which has amazingly gone on longer than it should.
The South aren't total losers considering all the liberal limosine northerners that want to move there to escape their "safe" Northern cities filled with illiterate gang bangers...
Dagny Taggert| 1.31.13 @ 1:41PM
Arnie, never been out of your blue state, have you? I'm guessing either a Manhattanite who thinks Westchester is out in the sticks, or a Bostonian who's never been west of Worcester.
Russel| 1.31.13 @ 1:41PM
Opinions are like assholes , everybody has one . So just keep buying those opinions ; they'll keep you where you are . That way , you won't move here and stink up the state . Everyone else is moving here , not just earners looking for a " safe " place to live , but also the worthless panhandlers looking for free stuff , as in food and housing . Half of Mich. lives here now . It's such a building boom you have to wait till next year for an electrician . Californicators have pushed the median home price through the roof . It goes on... Stay put ! .
junkyard infidel| 1.31.13 @ 3:39PM
"and the few that do like to beat gays"
so arnie (as in barnie, as in frank, as in bawny fwank), you lived in wyoming and got beat up ?
snipelee25| 2.1.13 @ 12:35PM
Not the "Maldives are going to drown" hoax again. This has been so thoroughly de-bunked as to become laughable.