January 23, 2015
The number of millionaire households in New Jersey declined last year, according to a just-released study by Phoenix Marketing International.
New Jersey still has a comparatively high number of millionaires. The state was third last year in millionaires per-capita compared with a second-place ranking in 2013.
The study found there are about 232,500 millionaire households, which is about 10,000 fewer compared with 2013 the study found. Millionaire households make up about 7 percent of the state's total.
So why the decline? A definitive answer is unclear, although Gov. Chris Christie has claimed the state's high taxes are driving out the wealthy.
In hopes of plugging the state's revenue hole, Democrats in the state Legislature passed a tax increase for incomes above $1 million. The legislation called for that tax rate to be elevated from just under 9 percent to 10.75 percent. Christie vetoed the measure.
He argued - and this is where the study comes in - that a higher tax rate on millionaires will cause more of them to move out of state and then New Jersey won't collect anything from them.
“The New Jersey Legislature continues to cling to the disproven theory that higher taxes will not chase wealth and investment from the state,” Christie said in a statement when he vetoed the tax increases in the budget.
Many Democrats disagree with this idea arguing instead that in times of financial distress, taxes should be higher on the rich to pay for valuable public services.
