New York state tops the nation in one key export — people fleeing high taxes.
More than 3.4 million New Yorkers — with combined annual earnings of $119 billion — pulled up stakes and left for other states from 2000 through 2009, according to the Tax Foundation.
The top destination: Florida, where 600,000 New Yorkers landed after leaving the high-taxes of the Empire State in the last decade — taking nearly $20 billion in income with them, new data shows.
New York was top of the heap for out-migration, outpacing California in second place, the conservative think-tank reported based on federal tax-return data.
Foundation analyst Nick Kasprak said taxes play a role in people’s decisions to relocate.
“You generally see people moving from higher-tax states to lower-tax states,” he said. “Certainly, taxes are one way that states compete with one another.”
Florida wins that competition with New York hands down. It has no income tax and no estate tax.
Former New Yorker Alex Sansky had enough by 2004, when he bought a two-bedroom condo in Boca Raton.
Three years later, the 56-year-old New York native sold his single-family home in Endicott, near upstate Binghamton.
“I was just throwing money away,” said Sansky, who’s worked 30 years as an ombudsman for IBM. “Now I’m paying about $1,500 a year for property tax, whereas before I was paying about $5,000 to $6,000 in New York.”
New York collects more than any other state in income taxes per person, and taxes estates above $1 million.
And Florida’s average sales tax rate of 6.62 percent is well below New York’s 8.48 percent.
The exodus of New Yorkers “reflects an ongoing loss of earning power — and, in many cases, job skills — to other states,” said E.J. McMahon, director of the conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy.
Kasprak said taxes aren’t the only explanation for New York’s population loss, citing Florida’s popularity as a retirement destination and noting “lower density, sunny, beaches.”
New York’s population loss was only partially offset by new arrivals.
About 2.1 million people moved to New York from 2000 to 2009, leaving the Empire State with a total net loss of 1.264 million.
But they weren’t coming for the taxes. The Tax Foundation has ranked New York first in overall tax burden every year but one from 1977 through 2006.
Things improved in 2007, when New York moved to second place, and even more so in 2008, when it fell to third.
It rose back to second in 2009, with New Yorkers paying 12.1 percent of their income in state and local taxes — $6,157 — compared with 9.8 percent for the average American, the foundation reported.
The foundation also ranks New York 49th in business-tax climate based upon corporate, income, sales, unemployment insurance and property taxes.
Gov. Cuomo has cited the state’s high taxes and anti-business climate as among the top issues he’s trying to address.