Fleeing New Jersey, and Its Crushing Taxes, for a Better Life

From National Review:

The home my father thought he owned outright had a co-owner: the local city council and school board. And it was a co-owner with an appetite for spending. Home ownership may have had its privileges, but it became a burden he could no longer afford.

The local property-tax bill alone was enough to make him move. On top of that, New Jersey went from having no state income tax to having one of the highest in the country (8.97 percent for the highest earners, and 6.4 percent for the middle class), and from having no sales tax to having one of the highest rates in the country (7 percent, almost as high as California’s, which is the highest sales tax in America, at 7.5 percent). It was all too much for him to handle.

Saddled by taxes and worried that future tax increases would eat up his retirement income and his savings, this lifelong New Jersey resident, at age 81, did what so many folks in high-tax states like New Jersey are forced to do: He sold his house and moved.

Prop 13 has prevented the selling of one's home while retired, due to taxes, but knowing California's Legislature, they want to slowly, but steadily end Pro 13 to feed the spending beast.

There are two roads ahead for state leaders, and a person need not have a Ph.D. in economics or to have served a stint at the Federal Reserve to figure which one to take. Just do a Google search for the 2014 National Movers Survey by United Van Lines and track where the American people are moving from, and where they are moving to, to understand which states are getting things terribly wrong, creating American refugees, and which states are welcoming them.

California must be high on the list. The Legislature just assumes the weather here will allow them to continue the anti-growth/tax and spend policies they have been able to get away with for years. But at some point, it will be time to pay the piper. But the time the Government of California figures it out, I and many other of my ta producing breatheren will be gone and it will be too late to fix it.