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Re: US migration within the country
Yeah, maps are Koch tax foundation, so a bit skewed. They show top marginal income rates only, so for a New England example, for most people RI income taxes are lower than MA, because MA has a flat tax and RI taxes the first $75k or so you earn at lower rates. Really should account for brackets, but harder to show on a map. Property taxes are average, and obviously can vary a lot by municipality. Sales taxes I think they do a good job with, though, since they combine state and local. They really get NH wrong, NH has no tax on income, only interest & dividends. They put a couple stars next to it, but it's deceiving on purpose. I think Tennessee has the same sort of thing going on.
Tradeoffs are interesting. Low property tax states tend to have high sales taxes. High property tax states might have either no income taxes or no sales taxes. NJ is a really weird case because they don't tax out of state income and so many people who live there work in NYC. CT suffers from the same problem since NY doesn't have reciprocity agreements like most neighboring states do.
Anyways, there are some clear regional preferences. The south generally prefers lower property taxes and higher sales taxes, except for Texas. The northeast and midwest tend to prefer the opposite, with Chicago and NYC skewing the sample. Excise can end up adding a lot too. This is another way of looking at it:
Yeah, maps are Koch tax foundation, so a bit skewed. They show top marginal income rates only, so for a New England example, for most people RI income taxes are lower than MA, because MA has a flat tax and RI taxes the first $75k or so you earn at lower rates. Really should account for brackets, but harder to show on a map. Property taxes are average, and obviously can vary a lot by municipality. Sales taxes I think they do a good job with, though, since they combine state and local. They really get NH wrong, NH has no tax on income, only interest & dividends. They put a couple stars next to it, but it's deceiving on purpose. I think Tennessee has the same sort of thing going on.
Tradeoffs are interesting. Low property tax states tend to have high sales taxes. High property tax states might have either no income taxes or no sales taxes. NJ is a really weird case because they don't tax out of state income and so many people who live there work in NYC. CT suffers from the same problem since NY doesn't have reciprocity agreements like most neighboring states do.
Anyways, there are some clear regional preferences. The south generally prefers lower property taxes and higher sales taxes, except for Texas. The northeast and midwest tend to prefer the opposite, with Chicago and NYC skewing the sample. Excise can end up adding a lot too. This is another way of looking at it:
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