A new demographics study, posted on newgeography.com, found that more tax filers are fleeing the state of New York than any other state in the country. Frankly, we're shocked people wouldn't want to live in a state with the highest cost of living, highest home prices, highest state income tax rate and highest property tax rate...what about the cultural benefits? We guess the bankers and hedgies have finally figured out that they can conduct their business from pretty much any location with an internet connection and then visit New York when/if necessary. Per the same study, Illinois lost the second highest number of taxpayers and California was not far behind in third.

Does anyone think it's purely a coincidence that the darkest areas of the following maps seem to overlap and represent the states that people are fleeing at the highest rates? If so, we assume you probably also think it's a coincidence that those very same states have been Democratic strongholds for decades.

Source: Economic Policy Institute.

Actually, the Albany Times Union was able to find at least one person who thought that people were fleeing from NY for reasons other than oppressively high costs of living and burdensome tax rates. Ironically, that person was non other than Richard Azzopardi, of Governor Cuomo's office, who said:

"The fact is that under this administration, New York has a record number of private sector jobs, an unemployment number below the national average, and passed reforms that led to the lowest middle class taxes in 70 years, the lowest corporate tax rates since 1968 and the lowest manufacturing tax rate since 1917 and a property tax cap."

While we appreciate the data from Azzopardi, we're not sure that linking New York's excessive tax rates to its own historically higher excessive tax rates is the right comparison. Our guess is that your citizens (or ex-citizens) probably consider New York's current tax rates versus the current tax rates of other states as the more relevant comparison. But that's just a hunch.