(Wall Street Journal)
Juliet Chung and Joseph De Avila Nov. 11, 2019 7:00 am
President Trump’s recently announced adoption of Florida as his home state over his native New York follows a rich tradition of high-profile financiers who have ditched northeastern states for warmer climes with lower taxes.
David Tepper, Paul Tudor Jones and Barry Sternlicht are among the prominent transplants who have pulled up roots in New York, New Jersey or Connecticut in recent years for Florida. New Yorker Carl Icahn has said he is moving his company to Miami next year.
“One day, I was at my home in Florida and thought, ‘Why the hell am I staying in New York?’” Mr. Icahn, 83 years old, said in a telephone interview.
Mr. Icahn, whose philanthropic stamp on New York includes Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said he has lived in New York nearly his entire life and loved it. “But in the last few years, I believe that it is certainly no longer the city of my youth,” he said.
The loss of the super-wealthy isn’t just a matter of reputation. The exodus of billionaires can crimp state budgets.
In 2017, Connecticut’s top 100 filers, out of a base of 1.8 million, paid $1.13 billion in income taxes, the equivalent of 12% of the state’s income-tax revenue for fiscal year 2018.
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