State Taxes Have a Negligible Impact on Americans' Interstate Moves

[laughing dog]

You have the burden of proof backwards.

No. You are evading the issue. You are demanding that someone investigate an effect you claim is important, but you refuse to provide any evidence of its importance at all.

The report looked at only half the issue--a half where you would not expect to see much effect--and found not much effect.

The report investigated an oft-repeated claim about state taxes.

This is being used to claim that tax rates don't change where people live--something that it does not actually say.

No, it does say that. You are arguing that the research is incomplete, but it does say that people's location decisions are not really affected by state taxes.

They could have looked at both sides of the coin, they didn't.

Really, how so?

Given the amount of crap I've seen based on looking at half the picture to support a position that the facts don't actually support I think it's very likely this is more of the same.

They supported their "crap" with evidence, and you refuse to support your claim with evidence.

Your side provided a bad piece of support, the burden is on your side to fix this.

"My side"? All I did was ask you to provide some evidence for your criticism. And I am still waiting for some evidence that anyone should take your criticism seriously.

 

[doubtingt]

. They could have looked at both sides of the coin, they didn't.

Yes, they did look at both sides of the coin. They looked at migration both into and out of every single state, and analyzed the tax rates of the state each person moved from and into. They found that people just as often moved from a low tax state to a higher tax state just as often as the reverse. IOW, there is no correlation between where you move to and whether it will raise or lower your taxes.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

. They could have looked at both sides of the coin, they didn't.

Yes, they did look at both sides of the coin. They looked at migration both into and out of every single state, and analyzed the tax rates of the state each person moved from and into. They found that people just as often moved from a low tax state to a higher tax state just as often as the reverse. IOW, there is no correlation between where you move to and whether it will raise or lower your taxes.

They didn't look very well.

In the past two decades, more households moved from no-income-tax Florida to Georgia, North Carolina, and nine other states with income taxes than moved to Florida from these states.

Florida--#25 in total taxes. Georgia--#34. North Carolina--#28.

It's not just the income tax, it's the total tax.

 

[doubtingt]

. They could have looked at both sides of the coin, they didn't.

Yes, they did look at both sides of the coin. They looked at migration both into and out of every single state, and analyzed the tax rates of the state each person moved from and into. They found that people just as often moved from a low tax state to a higher tax state just as often as the reverse. IOW, there is no correlation between where you move to and whether it will raise or lower your taxes.

They didn't look very well.

In the past two decades, more households moved from no-income-tax Florida to Georgia, North Carolina, and nine other states with income taxes than moved to Florida from these states.

Florida--#25 in total taxes. Georgia--#34. North Carolina--#28.

It's not just the income tax, it's the total tax.

Total tax is an invalid measure of tax burden because it is so highly confounded with property values, while income tax is much less related to property values. Their analyses showed that property values were a main driver but taxes were not. If taxes were a causal factor, then income tax would show a systematic pattern across the states. You are just cherry picking a couple of comparisons where the income tax differences are the opposite direction of the total tax differences, due mostly to differences in property values, which means differences in whether people can afford to buy a house in that state. Also, total tax and income tax are positively correlated, especially for the top 30% of earners who pay most of their taxes in the form of income tax and who are the most mobile and likely to move. Thus, overall total tax would show the same overall pattern as income tax, especially once you adjust for property values and cost of housing.

Besides, don't try to move the goalposts. You claimed they only looked at whether people in high tax states moved out of that state to a lower tax state. That is wrong, and you should now acknowledge that. The kind of tax measure they used is a separate issue, but you are wrong on that too.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I'd say the study makes sense. The average person doesn't really consider state income taxes, as state income taxes aren't a big deal to the average person.

What makes an average person move from a high tax state to a low tax state, or vice-versa, is employment. Maybe the need for a job becomes so great that moving becomes inevitable. Maybe a better offer appears that is so good it is worth moving for.

Jobs move though. Employers and bosses make sufficiently more that they are impacted by state taxes. They have reason and ability to move.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Unless taxes go up in state to something like 99%, no business is just going to up and leave existing infrastructure and a trained workforce.

Taxes alone don't determine a company's future.

There's quite a war of words between Texas and California right now that says otherwise. It is possible for the tax and regulatory environment to become sufficiently bad (and far less than 99%) that a business will indeed move. Yes, it will leave existing infrastructure and workforce. It's not something that people will want to hear, but it is true.

 

[doubtingt]

I'd say the study makes sense. The average person doesn't really consider state income taxes, as state income taxes aren't a big deal to the average person.

What makes an average person move from a high tax state to a low tax state, or vice-versa, is employment. Maybe the need for a job becomes so great that moving becomes inevitable. Maybe a better offer appears that is so good it is worth moving for.

Jobs move though. Employers and bosses make sufficiently more that they are impacted by state taxes. They have reason and ability to move.

If this were true (that people move for jobs while employers move for lower taxes), then it would mean still that people would reliably move from higher to lower state taxes in order to follow the jobs. The study shows this is not true. The study not only contradicts the notion that lower taxes are a cause of moving but that lower income taxes are not even reliably correlated with inter-state moves.