Way OT here, but yeah, WY is truely windy. Years ago I biked through it on a cross-country trip and the prevailing westerly wind literally pushed me across the state.
If income tax rates are your consideration, WY and South Dakota have none. SD is especially business friendly and its biggest city, Sioux Falls, has attracted big banking and credit card companies and grown in population about 40% in the last decade. Lots of the amenities, shopping, and culture there, and a civic-minded Scandanavian/German heritage, clean government, etc. North Dakota, with a sub-4% unemployment rate is also business-friendly with a rapidly growing energy sector. Both states are propelled by the farm sector, which is booming thanks to the world’s demand for commodities. Grain prices have outpaced gold lately, so farm land is soaring in price–perhaps 50% in the past three years. Farmers with land holdings often cash out in their fifties and sixties and build a McMansion in town and retire millionaires. Accordingly, the cities in these agricultural states are thriving (but not the smaller towns, which are still depopulating).
Income taxes aren’t everything, however, since states often have high sales (Nevada) or property (Texas) taxes to make up for no income taxes. But for the very rich, California’s steeply progressive taxes and high top rate of over 10% are making many Californians establish residence for tax purposes anywhere else, i.e. in Nevada. California’s capital gains taxes are especially onerous. I sold one long-held property here without a 1031 exchange, and my CA capital gains tax was two-thirds the size of the federal capital gains tax.
