New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani campaigned on income tax increases for high-earning individuals and corporations. Like autumn leaves yielding to wet December snow, post-election rhetoric has trended towards concerns about an impending exodus of the wealthy (and their businesses) from the city. But will New Yorkers actually move? And, if so, which New Yorkers? More below the fold.

Reports of tax-motivated migration often are hearsay, with relatively little evidence of widespread action that would support this talk. But, at the margins, people do (and will) move in search of lower tax burdens—and, conversely, to take advantage of higher levels of government services and other amenities. The identities and elasticities of these potentially mobile individuals are at the crux of any claims about how Mamdani’s tax and spending proposals would affect New York.

More generally, however, tax residence is impressively sticky. Somewhat predictably, social, spatial, and family considerations loom large in peoples’ locational choices. Humans are creatures of habit and relationships, and violating these precepts risks unhappiness that cannot be alleviated by lower effective tax rates. Though residence also is stickier when audits for out-migrants are both guaranteed and absolutely miserable.

The bottom line: it’s hard to make unequivocal claims about how workers respond to locational tax burdens. Anecdotes, gathered broadly, may be the best available guidance in a novel policy environment. Political priors probably aren’t as reliable. One thing that is almost certain: higher income taxes won’t help improve the Brookyln Nets’ win-loss record.

Finally, for a personal and compelling look at family and social dynamics in tax-motivated residency shifts, see Justin Schein’s documentary film, Death & Taxes. Schein’s parents split (temporarily) over “a tax-motivated move” from New York to Florida in retirement, all in the context of the Gingrich-era antitax movement.

Richard Luscombe, “The Mamdani Effect”: Wealthy New Yorkers Show Renewed Interest in Miami’s Billiionaire’s Beach, The Guardian (Dec. 3, 2025):

Senior real estate execs and others, including Donald Trump, have dented the idea that Mamdani will drive rich New Yorkers to the Sunshine state. But Florida realtors claim they are seeing an “exponential” recent rise in inquiries and sales. . . .

“I don’t see it as a mass exodus, I see it more as a thoughtful exodus,” [said Pietro Belmonte, executive vice-president at the marketing agent for Ritz-Carlton Residences, Miami Beach, which “has logged a 166% spike in interest from prospective buyers in New York”]. . . .

“Inquiries have increased exponentially,” [said Michael Patrizio, managing director of developers Mast Capital].

“The day after [Mamdani] won the primary, we had a New York buyer who was kind of on the fence and decided to move forward, same thing the week of the election, one on the fence moved forward. Those are kind of direct deals that happened . . . It was the election, I can say that with certainty. . . .

“There’s the relocation of major businesses, Citadel, Blackstone, Starwood Capital. That’s how we know it’s real, when you see an uptick in applications for the private schools. That means people are relocating.”

Sasha Rogelberg, “There Is No Mamdani Effect”: Manhattan Luxury Home Sales Surge After Mayoral Election, Undercutting Predictions of Doom and Escape to Florida, Fortune (Dec. 4, 2025):

In the aftermath of much well-heeled panic about a potential mass exodus of New York millionaires and billionaires following the election of Zohran Mamdani, the contrary is already happening, and Manhattan luxury apartment buyers are voting with their wallets [with brokers reporting substantial post-election increases in activity]. . . .

“There is no Mamdani effect,” Donna Olshan, president and founder of Olshan Realty, told Bloomberg. “The idea that people would flee New York was overblown. The numbers just aren’t bearing that out.”

Cristobal Young, New York’s Wealthy Warn of a Tax Exodus After Mamdani’s Win—But the Data Says Otherwise, The Conversation (Dec. 1, 2025):

When millionaires do move, it rarely appears to be for tax reasons. For example, Florida is the top destination for New York movers in general. But among the richest 1% of New Yorkers, the top destination is Connecticut, followed by New Jersey and California, all three of which levy a millionaire tax. . . .

Overall, only about 15% of millionaires who move end up with a lower tax bill. That shows the rich are willing and able to move for tax reasons. But because only about 2.4% of millionaires move each year—and only a fraction of those moves reduce their taxes—overall tax migration ends up being a small fraction of a small fraction. Not never, but not often. . . .

Migration is mostly a young person’s game. . . .

By the time someone earns enough to be taxed in the highest brackets, they’re usually late into their careers. They are almost always married, often have children at home, own their homes and, in many cases, own a business. Their social lives and their economic success are linked to local networks of colleagues, clients and connections built up over a long career. Moving away from those networks means giving up a great deal of social capital and starting over somewhere new. . . .

There is a big lesson here for state and city policies.

Every place wants to attract high-income earners and the spending power and tax dollars that accompany their salaries. Many policymakers think that tax cuts will lure them in, but this is mostly a fool’s errand. In normal times, the rich are deeply rooted and not movable.

The real opportunity lies in attracting and retaining the next generation of top earners—young people who are unattached to place and looking for opportunities to build their careers and their lives. Places that draw young professionals [with robust public services and other amenities] build the pipeline of future top earners. . . .

Matthew Haag, Rich New Yorkers Threaten to Leave. Then They Find Out How Hard That Is, N.Y. Times (Dec. 5, 2025):

Wealthy New Yorkers thinking of fleeing the city now that Zohran Mamdani has been elected mayor should know that state tax auditors will have a list of probing questions, each a bit more invasive than the last. . . .

Kenneth T. Zemsky, a tax lawyer whose clients have included Martha Stewart, said that in his decades of practice, for every 10 people who have inquired about leaving New York, about one has ended up actually doing so.

The requirements are too steep, he said, for people who thought it would be as simple as spending more time in a second home outside the city.

“They’ll push back and say, ‘Well, I don’t want to do all that. How little can I do to sever?’” he said. “If you’re thinking in those terms, you’re probably not going to do enough at the end of the day.”

“Not enough” is trouble when a letter arrives from the state’s Department of Taxation and Finance. With about 600 auditors, the department is particularly aggressive and thorough, Mr. Zemsky and other experts said. Auditors demand reams of information — cellphone records, credit card receipts, E-Z Pass logs, diary entries — that could support or disprove a change-of-residency claim. . . .

[T]ax lawyers and accountants said that an audit was almost guaranteed for any former New Yorker who made more than $1 million in a year in which they claim to have moved. At $10 million, the odds are 100 percent, they said. Over a five-year period ending in 2024, auditors recouped $13.8 billion in unpaid taxes, including income taxes and others collected by the state, such as sales tax. . . .

. . . Corey L. Rosenthal, an accountant and lawyer at CohnReznick, an accounting firm, said he starts conversations with potential movers with a 28-point checklist of best practices. They include obvious things like obtaining a new driver’s license, registering to vote and forwarding mail. But there are also obscure steps: changing the address on a pet’s microchip, updating burial plans, finding new doctors and switching to out-of-state club memberships.