Saturday, October 31, 2009

Taxes Take A Big Bite Out Of The Big Apple

France and England have been losing their millionaires for years over their high tax rates. California has suffered the same fate. I live in Nevada and over half the people who live here came from California to avoid high income taxes, real estate taxes, sales taxes, and, too, the insanity of California's regulation of their personal lives.

Now, New York is finding out that the last few rounds of tax increases are causing a mass exodus of their rich (Click to See Full Story: "Tax refugees staging escape from New York").

Like a lot of states -- and our own Federal government -- New York will find out, the hard way, that high taxes will not only result in the loss of taxpaying millionaires, but it will also result in the l0ss of businesses; because they too will decide to leave the state.

Right now, Michigan has the highest unemployment in the country. The auto industry was their mainstay but the American auto industry has literally fallen into ruin. Because of taxes and high union wages, those foreign automakers who have decided to set up shop in the U.S. -- like Toyota and BMW -- are moving to the friendlier quarters of the South, like Tennessee; rather than move to Michigan where the supposed experienced auto-making labor already exists.

The bottom line is that taxes, in the long run, hurt all of us. Losing millionaires is a disaster and high taxation makes that happen. In our country the top 1% of taxpayers foot the bill for 40% of our government's activities. If we lose those people, it will ultimately be you and I who will have to fill the gap. These people should not be treated like dirt but, instead, treated with some respect and not pushed to literal extinction with increasing and abusive taxation rates.

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