The Geography Decision Is a Life Question First
At some point, the accumulation of state tax news stops feeling like background noise and starts feeling like a question you need to answer: Should I move? It’s a reasonable financial question to start with. But it comes with at least three life questions right behind it. Where do I move to? Would I be happy there? What would I be walking away from? The geography of wealth and life priorities doesn’t always follow the tax code.
Those who make geography decisions they feel good about — either by leaving confidently or staying without regret — are the ones who work through both life and financial questions.
This is a pattern we see often
Washington’s new Millionaires’ Tax — a 9.9% levy on income above $1,000,000, effective 2028 — is the most recent version of something that’s been building for years. California has the highest top marginal rate in the country at 13.3%. New York sits at 10.9%1, with a city surcharge on top for Manhattan residents. New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota — the list of states that have raised taxes on high earners in the last decade is long, and it keeps growing.
The pattern is consistent. States with the highest concentrations of high earners are regularly the ones that look to those earners to close budget gaps. That is a planning reality, and it has created a question that more and more clients are asking: at what point does it stop making sense to stay here?
Here’s what we’ve noticed after many of these conversations: almost no one who is seriously asking this question is being driven purely by taxes. Life is more complicated than that.
The founder who just closed the most significant transaction of her career is asking what the next chapter looks like — and whether it has to look like the last one. Increasing taxes are the last in a series of signals pointing in the direction of making a change.
The executive whose RSU vesting has pushed him past a new threshold and whose kids left for college this past fall has been telling himself the Seattle years made sense while the family was rooted there. Now he’s not sure what’s keeping him here, and the tax component gave that feeling a number.
Start here instead
Most people start with numbers in a spreadsheet because that feels tangible. They model the annual tax savings at the new state rate. The number may be real and significant. But the question worth starting with is this: what do you want your life to look like in ten years, and where does that life take place? Not in the abstract — specifically. The community. The proximity to people who matter. The professional relationships that still have energy in them. The version of your days that would feel like a life well spent. Where is that life, and is it where the spreadsheet is pointing?
If you can answer that clearly — and the answer is somewhere else — the financial case is worth building. If the life picture is still vague, the financial case can pull you toward a premature decision. It will make something that should be personal feel like it’s already been decided.
You have more time than you think
If you’re in Washington, the 2028 effective date is worth holding onto — not as permission to delay, but as an argument against urgency. The clients who make geography decisions they’re confident in are the ones who asked the right questions before they acted. We believe two years is enough time to do that well.
The next two pieces in this series go deeper. Piece 2 will look at the full cost of leaving — the things that almost never make it into the initial calculation. Piece 3 will provide a framework for working through the decision in the right order.
If the question is already live for you and you don’t want to wait, your Brighton Jones advisor is ready to have this conversation. It’s exactly the kind of conversation we’re built for.
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About the Author: Melanie Arena, CFP®, is a Lead Advisor at Brighton Jones. She helps high-income professionals and families design tax-efficient investment strategies and retirement plans aligned with their principles and long-term goals.
This content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as individualized advice. For individualized advice tailored to your specific circumstances, please consult with your adviser.
