Brian J. Tumulty

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — People who earn at least $1 million annually don’t move away from high-tax states such as New York, New Jersey and California any more frequently than does the general population, a new study says.

Many of the nation’s highest earners are “the working rich,’’ such as lawyers, physicians, corporate managers and financiers, who earn a living near where they currently live, according to the study.

Cristobal Young, an assistant professor of sociology at Stanford University, and three other researchers examined Internal Revenue Service data on tax returns filed by million-dollar income-earners in every state between 1999 and 2011. One of the study's co-authors, Richard Prisinzano, works for the Treasury Department's Office of Tax Analysis.

Their study found that each year, about 500,000 households file returns reporting at least $1 million in income. Of those households, only about 12,000 change their state of residency annually.

That’s a migration rate of 2.4%, which is slightly lower than the national average of 2.9%. In fact, the people most likely to leave a state are those earning $10,000 or less annually.

States debate millionaires' taxes

Raise the Millionaires tax: Column

The study also looked at people who earned $1 million over multiple years as opposed to those who did it only once. It found that these “persistent millionaires’’ were even less likely to move (3.2% for one-timers vs. 1.9% for persistent millionaires).

The findings runs counter to arguments made by some politicians that raising taxes on the wealthy wage-earners at the state level causes many to move to another state. It’s been a long-running debate in New York, where a temporary millionaires’ income tax established during the 2009 state fiscal crisis has been extended through the end of 2017.

Billionaire Tom Golisano, a three time candidate for New York governor, was so unhappy with the tax that he changed his official residency to Florida in 2009 in protest. Florida has no state income tax.

Golisano kept his 38-acre estate in the Rochester suburb of Mendon, where he still lives part of the year, and changed his official residency to a house he already owned in Florida.

The switch saved him $5 million in annual state income taxes, according to a column he wrote in the New York Post at the time. Golisano made his fortune as the founder of payroll firm Paychex Inc.

In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie has vetoed state lawmakers' efforts to impose higher income tax rates on the wealthy, famously warning in his March 2010 budget address, “Ladies and gentlemen, if you tax them, they will leave.’’

The authors of the new study cite similar predictions by Nike chairman Phil Knight, who said a tax proposal in Oregon would create a “death spiral,” and by Microsoft, which fought a Washington state referendum saying a millionaires’ tax would “make it harder to attract talent.”

The study also cites cites previous research saying that people who earn at least $1 million annually are more likely than the general population to have family obligations, which makes them less likely to move.

“The rich are different from the general population,’’ Young and his co-authors wrote. “They more often have family responsibilities — spouses and school-age children that embed them in place. They own businesses that tie them to place. And their elite income itself embeds them in place: millionaires are not searching for economic opportunity — they have found it.’’

In addition to New York, California and the District of Columbia have top tax brackets that apply to incomes over $1 million. New Jersey and Connecticut have top brackets for high-income earners that starts at $500,000.

According to the Tax Foundation, 43 states levy individual income taxes, with 41 taxing wage and salary income. New Hampshire and Tennessee only tax dividend and interest income.

Seven states, including Florida and Texas, have no income tax.

Supporters of the millionaires’ tax argue that, where it doesn't exist, the wealthy pay a smaller share of their income than do middle- and lower-income families.

New York’s Fiscal Policy Institute, a liberal-leaning think tank, estimates that New York households earning under $100,000 pay state and local tax rates of 10.4%-12% while the wealthiest 1% pay an average of only 8.1%.

Ron Deutsch, the institute’s executive director, said the new study “validates everything that we have been saying for a long time — that there’s this myth out there that conservative groups tend to perpetuate every time someone talks about having the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes.’’

Deutsch’s group wants New York to increase tax rates on the wealthy, beginning with a 7.65% rate for households making $665,000. The increased rate would top out at 9.99%.

The current top income tax rate in New York is 8.82% on singles earning $1.07 million and couples earning $2.14 million, which generates about $3.7 billion annually for the state.

About 36,400 New York households reported incomes of $1 million or more in 2013, the most recent year available, according to the state Department of Financial Services.

Many states with income taxes have a top bracket that starts at a much lower income level.

E.J. McMahon, president of the fiscally conservative Empire Center for Public Policy, said the debate has been framed by politicians who say falsely that the wealthy are highly mobile.

“They are rooted to an extent, but they also can be mobile,’’ he said. “It depends on the size and timing of (tax) increases.’’

The years covered by the study include the period when the Bush tax cuts were enacted. For many wealthy Americans, those cuts would have offset increases in state income taxes, McMahon noted, and would have reduced high earners' incentive to move.

“None of these observations are reasons for saying, therefore we can raise the top (income) rates with impunity,’’ McMahon said.

He also highlighted the study’s finding that one state with no income tax — Florida — is drawing residents of high-tax states.

“Basically they suggest there is a significant movement from New York, mainly to Florida,’’ he said.

Follow Brian Tumulty on Twitter: @NYinDC