When U.S. Tax Returns Vote With Their Feet…

The TaxProf offers up a stimulating data set on interstate migration trends from 1993 to 2008. (From MyTaxBurden.org). He concludes people who pay taxes don’t particularly like living in Blue States:

The Tax Foundation has launched an interactive tool that shows state-to-state migration data, including the number of taxpayers that move into and out of a particular state, along with changes in the flow of income to and from the state.

Users select a state and a range of years between 1993 and 2008. The site then calculates immigration to and emigration from that state. Because the tool is based on IRS tax return data which include both personal and financial information, the site can calculate the flows of both people and their income. Also, data can be compared between two specific states or between one state and all other states.

Here are the ten states with the largest net migration outflow from 1993-2008:

Rank	State	Tax Return Outflow	Exemptions Outflow	AGI Outflow
1	NY	962,100	2,161,953	$71,732,015,000
2	CA	723,098	2,249,194	$47,653,140,000
3	IL	376,373	831,433	$31,959,827,000
4	NJ	280,044	492,545	$21,724,614,000
5	MI	276,750	409,144	$15,880,307,000
6	OH	273,378	395,847	$19,683,721,000
7	PA	195,837	174,517	$10,093,603,000
8	MA	169,540	371,635	$12,496,936,000
9	LA	133,989	291,900	$7,192,784,000
10	CT	117,057	176,962	$7,862,730,000

Nine of the ten states voted for President Obama in 2008 (the tenth state — Louisiana — suffered massive migration from Hurricane Katrina).

Here are the ten states with the largest net migration inflow from 1993-2008:

Rank	State	Tax Return Inflow	Exemptions Inflow	AGI Inflow
1	FL	864,960	1,666,629	$97,161,723,000
2	AZ	448,463	862,732	$29,762,956,000
3	NC	402,594	803,148	$25,266,713,000
4	GA	383,030	798,849	$15,205,329,000
5	TX	362,494	861.576	$20,768,262,000
6	NV	296,276	569,094	$19,831,176,000
7	CO	202,079	346,303	$14,120,073,000
8	TN	183,594	402,551	$9,662,364,000
9	SC	153,181	323,383	$13,557,343,000
10	WA	145,217	256,834	$11,091,142,000

Five of the ten states voted for John McCain in 2008; nine of the ten states voted for President Bush in 2004.