By: Daniel Riojas
With the recent passage of the most significant federal tax reform in over 30 years, small towns in states with lower personal and corporate income tax rates stand ready to reap a rare, if not generational, benefit at the expense of high tax states.
In addition to the normal rate migration where (for many years) overburdened citizens of highly taxed states have become “economic refugees” with unemployed auto workers from the rust belt moving to states like Tennessee and Texas while thousands of small and medium sized businesses from California moved to states like Nevada and Colorado. This exodus accelerated dramatically in 2017 with glaring evidence of this is the fact being that Illinois has dropped from the 5th largest state to 6th in 2017! (Chicago Tribune)*
This could be a very promising harbinger for small Red State communities like Pagosa Springs Colorado according to Britney Chaisson (owner of NextHome Rocky Mountain Realty and Rentals) who call her town the Last Affordable Mountain Resort Town in Colorado.
Which is something that can hardly be attributed to by federal tax cuts passed in December of 2017 but which lead many observers like myself to expect massive acceleration along this vein in 2018 as (and I don’t think we need a crystal ball to see that) business, individuals and job seekers will avoid advantage the last their right to vote with their feet, bus tickets and moving vans to avoid the last major disadvantage toward economic security.
Chicago Tribune: Illinois drops from the fifth-largest state to No. 6