Remember when Gov. Cuomo said that New York couldn’t pile any more taxes on the rich because they might leave. They are going anyway. It’s causing budgetary separation anxiety. To ease the pain, any high earner that decides to pack up and move out will get a state tax audit. Guaranteed.
The exodus didn’t begin with federal tax reform. But when Mr. Trump and Republicans removed the ability of highly taxed residents in high-tax states to write off their losses on the backs of everyone else it got real. Unable to hide from the reality of what they’d created some chose to run.
When you do, Cuomo’s Tax Stasi is coming for you. Well, your money, at least.
“If you’re a high earner in New York and you move to Florida, your chances of a residency audit are 100 percent,” Barry Horowitz, a partner at the WithumSmith+Brown accounting firm, told CNBC. “New York has always been aggressive. But it’s getting worse.”
By worse, they mean your whole life goes under their microscope.
New York’s success rate on audits can be attributed not only to the traditional methods of investigation like going through an individual’s credit card bills, but also to new high-tech tools that include tracking phone records, social media, and even veterinary and dentist records, according to the outlet.
Fox News adds that this process has been rewarding. They have 3000 of these audits under their belt from 2010-2017. An average haul of over 144,000.00 dollars. For a total of over a billion in taxes from folks who up and left. Maybe that’s cheap for a divorce? And in the long run, those high-earners will probably save more.
But it won’t stop there
A state with that big of an appetite that is willing to take the forensic accountant approach to “the rich” will soon be looking further down the income scale. Prying into the lives of the upper-middle class. The middle class. Everyone.
What other option does it have, unless of course, the voters decide to elect representatives who will cut spending instead of milking them for more tax dollars?
And why stop at collecting taxes? What are they doing with all this information they are compiling about residents lives with new high-tech tools?
Consider it a warning to New Hampshire. New York didn’t get that way overnight. It started like the session of the legislature we are experiencing now. And went downhill from there.
