Pennsylvania’s Taxes Driving Residents Out

The Tax Foundation has a new Fiscal Fact on Pennsylvania’s tax system and its impact on inter-state migration. After profiling Pennsylvania’s tax climate (hint: it is near the bottom in most categories), Scott Hodge notes outlines how Pennsylvania has done in competition for residents, based on inter-state move on IRS returns (hint: PA ranks near the bottom on that too).

In every year but one, 2002 to 2003, the state saw more taxpayers leave the state than move into it. Clearly, the largest losses occurred between 1993 and 2000, an average of more than 15,000 per year. Since then, the state has been losing an average of nearly 3,800 taxpayers per year on net. …

Between 1993 and 2008, Pennsylvania lost on-net $9.7 billion in adjusted gross income to outmigration. Even in the 2002-2003 period, where the state gained slightly more taxpayers than it lost, it still lost AGI overall because the people who left the state earned more than the new people who entered the state.

You can get a printable version of the analysis here.