The richest NYC-area folks whom I know have moved away to escape coronaplague and the associated lockdown. Why be in an apartment, even a $10 million one, if restaurants, museums, theaters, and offices are shut down? The refugees from Covid-19 have washed up in large oceanfront mansions, all of which are outside of NYC and most of which are outside of New York State.
If they decide to stay away for the entire summer and into the fall, coinciding with the minimum expected period of quasi-shutdown they will hit the magic 183 days for 2020. At that point, why will they pay NYC and New York State taxes on income derived from interest and dividends, for example? Haven’t they inadvertently accomplished what 183-day Florida or Puerto Rico residents have previously done intentionally?
This has happened to a lesser extent for my Massachusetts friends during coronapanic (many of whom actually turned into Florida or Texas residents starting in 2018 when the new tax law went into effect).
States can’t print money so they need to borrow, cut spending (hah!), or default (as they did in the 19th century). What happens to New York if their richest taxpayers aren’t around for enough days in 2020 to be hit?
Related:
- “One Top Taxpayer Moved, and New Jersey Shuddered” (NYT, 2016)
- “South Florida sees swell of new residents moving from high-tax states” (Sun Sentinel, January 2020): South Florida saw a more than 60 percent increase in net personal income over 2017, and Palm Beach County alone saw a 20 percent increase, according to the IRS, which tracks changes in personal income through address changes on annual tax returns.
A step on a career path aimed at helping rich people flee from coronaplauge might be a job as a U.S. Air Force Supervisory Airplane flight instructor. See
https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/564346800
Good excuse to default/renegotiate all those public pension liabilities. Or not, they can just raise taxes on whatever is left and unable to flee. I’ve been saying for years that limiting interstate migration is a dream of our government. Now they have a cover story. Covid-19-id 2020 holocaust tattoos and travel paper requirements coming soon.
Mitch McConnell floated the idea of letting the states go bankrupt the other day. It didn’t go over very well. They have to change the law to do it. It would be something to watch, if it happened.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-22/mcconnell-says-he-favors-allowing-states-to-declare-bankruptcy
“New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, said he was stunned by McConnell’s comments, which he called “completely and utterly irresponsible.”
“He’s dead wrong. You have my word we won’t go bankrupt,” he said. Without cash to states, Murphy said, governors will be forced to “gut the living daylights out of every state of America,” slashing budgets and eliminating the services people need.”
Funny you should mention Puerto Rico:
“The idea has fans, however, including David Skeel, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School and a member of Puerto Rico’s financial oversight board.”
So far, it’s a war of words and a game of chicken between McConnell and Mario Cuomo:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/04/24/cuomo-tells-mcconnell-i-dare-you-to-pass-a-law-allowing-states-to-declare-bankruptcy/#7c21ab8c5d91
“Pass the law, I dare you,” Cuomo taunted McConnell during his press conference. “Pass that bill, if you weren’t just playing politics.”
As usual, Phil, you are exaggerating. Our Mayor Bill De Blasio (a/k/a Warren Wilhelm, jr. a/k/a “the Dope from Park Slope”) has set up a racial inequality “task force” run by his wife to deal with the “racial disparities” of the coronavirus: https://nypost.com/2020/04/26/de-blasio-appoints-wife-head-of-coronavirus-racial-inequality-task-force/
You would need a hard heart indeed not to want to pay taxes in order to fund that.
And remember the Mayor funneled close to a billion dollars to an organization headed by this same woman in order to address mental illness in NYC. The money was spent on subway posters and “hotlines” and who knows what else. One might think there might have been a criminal investigation of where the money went but since the offices of the Attorney General and District Attorney are safely in the hands of Democratic Party hacks no questions were asked. And then let’s also remember how the Mayor courageously banned plastic bags on 1 March so that during the plague citizens would be forced to load their groceries into filthy backpacks. So you really think people are going to flee NYC just to avoid paying a few dollars in taxes?
“Lockdowns are for thee, but not for me!” as demonstrated by NYC mayor deblassio + wife + entourage as they stroll through a park in Brooklyn (at least a 20 minute drive from the mayor’s mansion):
https://t.co/kyBbD5R1vT