If there’s a film about Sin City to be shot in 2024 — something to join the ranks of “Ocean’s 11” or “Viva Las Vegas” — then recruit the likes of Mark Wahlberg and Dean Cain to star in a tale of celebs who leave behind their Hollywood digs for mansions off the casino strip.
Based on a true story? As they say in Vegas, you bet.
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While it’s difficult at best to pinpoint a single statistic that proves an exodus from the Sunset Strip to the Las Vegas Strip among mansion owners, numbers from many corners of the economy show that rich folks are leaving Cali in dramatic numbers, while Vegas has seen some high-earning arrivals recently, including Wahlberg — who hopes to help build a movie studio there (more on that in a bit).
Meanwhile, about 27,300 fewer tax returns were filed in California between 2020 and 2021 that reported an adjusted gross income of at least $200,000, according to research by the non-profit Tax Foundation that cites IRS migration data. Last year, Redfin reported that Los Angeles and San Francisco accounted for the highest number of homebuyers searching to move to Las Vegas from April 2023 to June 2023.
And in terms of new Vegas construction, luxury homes worth in excess of $1 million sold at a record pace in the first half of 2023: 267, more than triple the number during the same period in 2018, according to numbers compiled by local research firm Home Builders Research and cited by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Overall in 2022, 2,130 luxury home sales of $1 million or more were completed in Southern Nevada, essentially unchanged from the elevated level in 2021, per the Nevada State Bank.
Read on to learn more about three big reasons why rich Californians may be more tempted than ever to leave their mansions behind.
Taxes
Only nine states in the U.S. don’t have an income tax, and Nevada is one of them. Compare that to California, where taxes for the highest wage earners clock in at 14.4% — highest in the nation. Nevada’s average combined state and local sales tax rate is 8.23%, slightly lower than the Golden State’s 8.82%.
So if you live in California and made $10 million, you could potentially wind up on the hook to the state for $1.44 million. Or you could bring your action across state lines to the Nevada side and not have to worry about bupkis.
There’s another levy in particular that’s getting under the skin of the Los Angeles County’s well-to-do: the so-called “Mansion Tax.” As of 2023, any property sale that exceeds $5 million subjects the seller to a 4% tax; if it surpasses $10 million, the rate jumps to 5.5%. Arguably, paying that tax could discourage selling — though it could just as easily prove the last straw for taxed-to-death Californians.
Read more: Millions of Americans are in massive debt in the face of rising rates. Here’s how to take a break from debt this month
Quality of life
The kind of traffic jams that make L.A. driving a round-the-clock test of nerves simply don’t exist in Vegas, even if the summer’s Formula One racing event made a mess of local roads. Wahlberg also talks about Vegas as being a better place to raise his family. Really.
“You have Las Vegas, and people think automatically, ‘Oh, the Strip,’” the actor told TODAY.com. “But [in] Nevada, there are wonderful communities. I live in a wonderful community that’s really faith-based, great schools. There’s much more to Las Vegas than the Strip.”
Room to grow a (show) business
If you’re comparing California to Nevada as a business-friendly state, it’s hardly a contest in terms of tax structure, according to the Tax Foundation. It ranks the former as 48th on its 2024 State Business Tax Climate Index, while Nevada comes in seventh.
No wonder there’s the very real potential for Vegas to become a moviemaking hub just 90 minutes by plane from Los Angeles. Last year, Wahlberg appeared before the Nevada state legislature in support of SB 496, the Nevada Film Studio Infrastructure Act. Sony Pictures Entertainment, Birtcher Development and the Howard Hughes Corp. were also lobbying for it.
The bill, which would have granted $190 million in yearly tax credits, never made it to a vote. However, several sources told Variety that “the bill or similar legislation has a much better chance of passing when the next session happens in 2025.”
Imagine that, and we’re betting Wahlberg’s peers already are: shoot a blockbuster by day, shoot craps at night and shoot home without the vagaries of bumper-to-bumper traffic and a hefty tax bill in the mailbox.
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This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
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