Are fleeing Maryland millionaires not 'relevant'?
Len Lazarick follows up on his earlier post on Frederick County businessman Mark Gaver, who changed his residence to Florida and said it was partly because of high Maryland taxes. Today Lazarick quotes Prof. Roy Meyers at UMBC who says the occasional millionaire refugee is "not materially relevant in the accounting sense."
Also this morning:
Barry Rascovar dissects what he says was a tailor-made state solar-generation job for Maryland Solar, owned by Beowulf Energy, one of whose principals is Michael Enright, former chief of staff to Gov. O'Malley. Says Rascovar:
Is this fair? Is it ethical? No one is even looking at those issues. It will simply go down as an example of behind-the-scenes government maneuvering that proves it’s not what you know but who you know that counts.
Baltimore is losing in state redistricting, Annie Linskey reports.
Roscoe Bartlett's opposition to medical research on chimps.
Why do people love BWI?
Chris Van Hollen is on the supercommittee.
Comments
Mr. Hancock isn't it your job or maybe an intern to research Mr. enright and the rest of O'Malley's cabinet business dealings? I guess we can only hope a Washington or New York paper reports on our state business corruption.
Posted by: kevin | August 12, 2011 12:24 PM
Fleeing millionaires might be relevant if only somebody could prove that it was happening. If the argument is that there are fewer millionaires in Maryland than there were a few years ago, that wouldn't be particularly surprising given the current economic climate, which would suggest fewer millionaires everywhere.
Posted by: harrybsun@meretrix.com | August 12, 2011 3:40 PM
I live in MD but I am not a MD resident. It's simple. The millionaires not not "fleeing" the state, they're simply changing their resident status on paper and simply paying taxes on their property. No income tax that way.
Posted by: Dan | August 12, 2011 4:26 PM
I live in MD but I am not a MD resident. It's simple. The millionaires not not "fleeing" the state, they're simply changing their resident status on paper and simply paying taxes on their property. No income tax that way.
Posted by: Dan | August 12, 2011 4:26 PM
They're not relevant because it's simply not happening on any meaningful scale. Even the subject of the original story states that it's not the primary reason he's moving.
There's lots of comments that my sister's next door neighbor's cousin is moving and taking their business with them, but this doesn't seem to be borne out by the facts.
Relocating a business is a massive expense. You have to find a new office/site, hire new employees and build up a new market. There'd have to be huuuuge tax benefits to relocating, and in the case of Florida, it doesn't seem likely.
Posted by: Eric | August 12, 2011 4:49 PM
The "Millionaire Tax" O'Malley implemented was proven to be a failure. What happened as a result? They DID in fact leave. The State of Maryland received LESS tax revenue.
Posted by: Frank Rizzo | August 13, 2011 5:37 PM
The government is a drug addict. It makes a mess of things and comes to everyone for more and more money. The politicians get pudding headed journalists to go along with the "tax the rich" class envy game - which never has the desired effect of balancing the budget as the government, with the modest revenues that do come in, usually spend it on new programs and entitlements. That's what so sick and twisted about journalists who run interference for the class envy crowd - they're supposed to be paying attention and know what's going to happen, but, like the addict's Mother who thinks helping out her drug fried son, "just one more time" will help get him off drugs, the financial journalists enable the government with their raise taxes mantras that don't work.
Posted by: Randy | August 15, 2011 1:26 PM