From: Tax on the Rich Won’t Make Them Flee New York, Experts Say – NYTimes.com.

Taxes Not Seen as Making the Rich Flee New York

It is perhaps the most potent argument offered by those who oppose increasing the income tax on wealthy New Yorkers: If you raise it, they will flee.

That case has been made repeatedly by Gov. David A. Paterson, who says that higher taxes should be a last resort. It has been featured in a campaign by Taxpayers for an Affordable New York, a coalition of real estate and business interests. And it has been on the mind of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, New York City’s richest person, who said in a radio interview, “You can’t tax too much those that can move.”

Yet there is surprisingly little evidence to support the proposition that rich New Yorkers would bolt if forced to pay higher income taxes. Though tracking the movement of wealthy taxpayers from state to state is difficult, experts on public finance and migration say they have yet to document a substantial “rich drain” in states that have raised income taxes in recent years.

“At the level we’re talking about, there’s no quantitative evidence that it affects the mobility decisions of affluent taxpayers,” said Douglas S. Massey, a demographer at Princeton University and president of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

Pressured by enormous budget deficits, officials in Illinois, Hawaii, Wisconsin and New Jersey are considering new taxes on the rich. Lawmakers in Albany have discussed several proposals, including increases for those earning more than $250,000.

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