I wonder how hard it would be

for a lot of the big businesses and heavy lifters to simply move out of New York simply to avoid taxes.

I worked for Maritrans for a while and they got into some kind of a beef with the City of Philadelphia and simply pulled up stakes and moved to Tampa.

IIRC what happened is some other shipping company cut a deal whereby they got a tax break for coming to Philly and the CEO of Maritrans asked "What about the companies that have been here since Day one? Where's our break?"

Of course, one was not forthcoming so Maritrans left Philly.

Philly then tried to levee a wage tax against Maritrans employees that  serviced terminals in the Philly limits but found out sadly they couldn't under federal law protecting mariners. 

While Maritrans was not a major corporate player in the big scheme of things, it was a fairly sizable asset that Philly lost.

These days the technology of communications has changed I don't believe it would be all that difficult for a lot of the big businesses that are centered in NYC to simply go somewhere else and take their wealth with them.

I can picture, for example, the NYSE becoming the Topeka Stock Exchange and bringing their wealth to someplace like that or any other medium sized city. I would imagine they could save a bundle in taxes if they moved. That doesn't include the aggravation of being in such a crowded area and the rest of the annoyances.

People seem to forget that Amazon, one of the biggest movers and shakers in the country are headquartered in Seattle. 

All it would take is a few of the heavyweights to decide that the 'prestige' of being headquartered in NYC isn't worth the taxes and annoyances and move elsewhere and there would likely be an exodus over a fairly short time.

New York State itself has offered tax relief to companies coming to New York but the tax relief is only good for a few years. After that the deal ends and the new arrivals would be paying regular NY taxes. I understand that there have been very few takers.

Personally I would laugh to see New York turn into nothing more than a seaport. They could use all the empty office buildings to house illegal immigrants in.

   

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY