On April 13, Better Choices for Connecticut held a news conference to dispute myths about wealthy residents moving out of state because of income tax increases, to announce new regional research on taxes and migration, and to call for increasing income taxes on wealthy residents and maintaining the property tax credit. Video highlights from this event are below:
Jamey Bell from Connecticut Voices for Children introduces the event and the Better Choices income tax proposal.
Jon Shure from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains that raising income taxes on the wealthiest residents will help meet growing public needs, will help the state make investments that are crucial to creating jobs, and will not result in mass migrations.
Jeffrey Thompson from the Political Economy Research Institute at UMASS Amherst discusses the findings of new research on New England states indicating that residents move between states largely because of job and family issues, not taxes.
More video below!
Wade Gibson of the Yale Law School and participant in the School's Legislative Advocacy Clinic discussed the findings of his study for CT Voices for Children. This analysis found that if people actually did move because of taxes, they should move to Connecticut. Connecticut taxes are competitive with taxes of its tri-state neighbors, and the property taxes in wealthy CT towns are much lower than in comparable NY towns, leaving "room" for raising income taxes on wealthy residents.
Wade Gibson responds to a question about a report by Tom Foley claiming that income tax increases will cause the wealthy to leave the state.
Thanks to AFT CT for their assistance with videotaping.
