Huffington Post, The Millionaire Migration Myth: Don’t Fall for This Anti-Tax Scare Tactic, by Carl Davis (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy):

Virtually every state in the country has a tax system that heavily favors the rich. Despite this fact, only a handful of states responded to the revenue slump brought on by the Great Recession with any sort of tax increase on this favored group. What gives? With so many states looking for ways to balance their budgets, why isn’t there more interest in finally making the rich pay their fair share?

The answer lies partially in one of the most effective, yet most absurd anti-tax scare tactics to be used in recent memory: the so-called “millionaire migration” epidemic. State lawmakers across the country have heard again and again that wealthy taxpayers will pull up stakes and move in response to just about any progressive state tax increase. In most cases, however, even a cursory look at the facts shows that these fears are unjustified. With tax day nearly upon us once again, let’s take just a moment to make those facts known. …

With so much bad information floating around, it’s not surprising that most states have been reluctant to eliminate the massive preferences for the wealthy built into their tax systems. But what lawmakers need to know — and what the Wall Street Journal and others have been refusing to tell them — is that once you scratch the surface of the millionaire migration issue, it becomes abundantly clear that the anti-tax side’s claims have no substance. It’s long past time to stop letting the millionaire migration myth get in the way of progressive tax reform.