Where millionaires live? State taxes make little difference

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/where-millionaires-live-state-taxes-make-no-difference-2D11664966

Robert Frank CNBC
Nov. 27, 2013

Media reports are filled with stories of wealthy New Yorkers and pro golfers in California threatening to move to escape high taxes.

-----

But new data on the population of millionaires suggest little connection between tax rates and a state's population of millionaires. If millionaires are moving out, many more are moving in—or being created.

A new state-by-state count of multimillionaires shows that some of the highest tax states created the most millionaires. The study, from UBS and Wealth-X, ranked states by their populations of people worth $30 million or more—presumably the most mobile part of the wealth chain and the most sensitive to taxes.

-----

But even on a percentage basis, several high tax states had big millionaire gains. The number one gainer of multimillionaires on a percentage basis was Massachusetts, aka "Taxachusetts" because of its tax rates.

-----

n short, the report shows that a state's tax rate doesn't correlate to its net gain or loss of multimillionaires—a finding that echoes other research on the effect of tax rates on millionaire migration. Broader economic factors seem to matter as much or more than taxes for millionaire counts—like economic growth, business environment, the role of finance in the economy and the type of local industry.

-----