This week, Governor Andrew Cuomo said “I don’t believe in increasing taxes. I believe it’s counterproductive for the state… I believe more people will leave the state and you’ll have less revenue.”
Well, according to Citizens for Tax Justice, that isn’t exactly true. It turns out that there’s absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Fair Share Tax Reform – the small tax increase on New York’s wealthiest 3% that was passed in 2009 – had any effect on millionaires leaving the state.
We know this after a study released by the Partnership for New York City – a group of big corporate special interests – said that the PIT increase was causing millionaires to bail.
CTJ pointed out that PNYC was looking at the number of people in New York who have a net worth over $1 million – not people who have incomes over $1 million.
That’s a pretty important difference. Of course the number of people who have a net worth over $1 million decreased from 2008 to 2010. There was a recession and stocks went down. People lost money. Income taxes are based on income, and it turns out that the number of people who earned over $1 million increased from 2009 to 2010, while the PIT increase was in effect.
The Wall Street Journal pressed PNYC on the topic. Their response:
“It’s a very difficult thing to measure,” she said. “We get a lot of it anecdotally. Our evidence is from conversations with lots of high earners and there is an increasing tendency to gravitate to lower-tax places.”
Anecdotally. Anecdotally?
Here’s an idea: let’s protect kids, not millionaires.