Connecticut’s Continuing Decline

January 14, 2020 by Dan Mitchell

I wrote last week about the ongoing shift of successful people from high-tax states to low-tax states. And I’ve periodically confirmed this trend by doing comparisons of high-profile states, such as Texas vs. California and Florida vs. New York. Today, I’m going to focus on Connecticut.

I actually grew up in the Nutmeg State and I wish there was some good news to share. But Connecticut has been drifting in the wrong direction ever since an income tax was imposed about 30 years ago.

And the downward trend may be accelerating.

A former state lawmaker has warned that the golden geese are escaping the state.

A former state representative says wealthy Connecticut residents are leaving the state at “an alarming pace.” Attorney John Shaban says when he returned to private practice in Greenwich in 2016, one of his most popular services became helping some of the state’s top earners relocate to places like Florida… “Connecticut started to thrive 20, 30 years ago because people came here. We were a tax haven, we were a relatively stable regulatory and tax environment, and we were a great place to live,” says Shaban. …Shaban says many small businesses now require little more than a laptop to operate, and that’s making it easier for small business owners to relocate out of state.

The exodus of rich people has even caught the attention of the U.K.-based Economist..

Greenwich, Connecticut, with a population of 60,000, has long been home to titans of finance and industry. …It has one of America’s greatest concentrations of wealth. …You might think a decade in which rich Americans became richer would have been kind to Greenwich. Not so. …the state…raised taxes, triggering an exodus that has lessons for the rest of America… Connecticut increased income taxes three times. It then discovered the truth of the adage “easy come, easy go”. …Others moved to Florida, which still has no income tax—and no estate tax. …Between 2015 and 2016 Connecticut lost more than 20,000 residents—including 2,050 earning more than $200,000 per year. The state’s taxable-income base shrank by 1.6% as a result… Its higher income taxes have bitten harder since 2018, when President Donald Trump limited state and local tax deductions from income taxable at the federal level to $10,000 a year.

For what it’s worth, the current Democratic governor seems to realize that there are limits to class-warfare policy..

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said he opposes higher state income tax rates and he linked anemic growth with high income taxes. …when a caller to WNPR radio on Tuesday, January 7 asked Lamont why he doesn’t support raising the marginal tax rate on the richest 1 percent of Connecticut residents, Lamont responded: “In part because I don’t think it’s gonna raise any more money. Right now, our income tax is 40 percent more than it is in neighboring Massachusetts. Massachusetts is growing, and Connecticut is not growing. We no longer have the same competitive advantage we had compared to even Rhode Island and New York, not to mention, you know, Florida and other places. So I am very conscious of how much you can keep raising that incremental rate. As you know, we’ve raised it four times in the last 15 years.” …Connecticut has seven income tax rate tiers, the highest of which for tax year 2019 is 6.99 percent on individuals earning $500,000 or more and married couples earning $1 million or more. That’s 38.4 percent higher than Massachusetts’s single flat-tax rate for calendar year 2019, which is 5.05 percent.

I suppose it’s progress that Gov. Lamont understands you can’t endlessly pillage a group of people when they can easily leave the state.

In other words, he recognizes that “stationary bandits” should be cognizant of the Laffer Curve (i.e., high tax rates don’t lead to high tax revenues if taxable income falls due to out-migration).

But recognizing a problem and curing a problem are not the same. Lamont opposes additional class-warfare tax hikes, but I see no evidence that he wants to undo any of the economy-sapping tax increases imposed in prior years.

So don’t be surprised if Connecticut stays near the bottom in rankings of state economic policy.

P.S. The last Republican governor contributed to the mess, so I’m not being partisan.

P.P.S. Though even I’m shocked by the campaign tactics of some Connecticut Democrats.