Please join us for the Money, Markets, and Governance Workshop, on Tuesday, Nov. 10th, at 4:30PM – 6PM, at Social Science Research Building, class 106
Cristobal Young
Assistant Professor, Stanford University, Sociology
Millionaire Migration and the Taxation of the Elite: Evidence from Administrative Data
Discussant: Maude Pugliese
PhD Candidate, University of Chicago, Sociology
Abstract: A growing number of U.S. states have adopted ‘millionaire taxes’ on top income earners. This increases the progressivity of state tax systems, but raises concerns about tax flight: elites migrating from high-tax to low-tax states, draining state revenues and undermining redistributive social policies. Are top income earners ‘transitory millionaires’ searching for lower-tax places to live? Or are they ‘embedded elites’ that are reluctant to migrate away from places where they have been highly successful? This question is central to understanding the social consequences of progressive taxation. We draw on administrative tax returns for all million-dollar income earners in the United States over 13 years, tracking the state from which millionaires file their taxes. Our data set contains 45 million tax records and provides census-scale panel data on top income earners. We advance two core analyses: (1) state-to-state migration of millionaires over the long-term, and (2) a sharply-focused discontinuity analysis of millionaire population along the borders of states. We find that millionaire tax flight is occurring, but only at the margins of statistical and socio-economic significance.
Drinks and snacks will be served.
Questions about the workshop or accessibility concerns can be addressed to:
yanivr at uchicago dot edu