Top tax rates in NY kick in for income over 25m. Top tax in CA kick in at 1.4m. Portland top tax rates kick in at 400k. Very hard to find a city with higher taxes in the 400k - 1m range. Have you noticed that all the doctors and lawyers offices are moving out to Tigard and Hillsboro?
If you're talking about the Metro SHS & PFA taxes, that's 1% & 1.5% respectively on incomes over $200,000 (joint). Meaning if your AGI is $300,000, you owe a whopping $2,500, which directly goes to supporting children & marginalized people. Oh no! That's so much! Better that families suffer!
(for the record, it's not actually anywhere near that much, but even if it were, seriously that's $200/mo. That's 2 dinners out for a family of 4. Not exactly hard to cut back enough to cover it when you make mid-six figures)
I support the tax, period, but there are folks with high income on paper with a heavy overall financial burden (kids, parents) that’s significantly increased in the last 2 years. I don’t think these people are moving, but it is annoying that much wealthier people w/o traditional income pay far less.
Oh don't get me wrong, investment income, corporations, etc. need to pay WAY the heck more. But as someone in the 2nd highest federal tax bracket & the highest state one, if someone has that income on paper, even with expenses (which I also have), I do not have sympathy for a request to lower ours.
There are ways to lower your AGI, including itemizing if your expenses are way outside the norm (e.g. medical expenses more than a certain %age of income). I'm ok with 1% of my income over $200K going to help people who are homeless. Should businesses pay more? Yes. But 1% isn't a hardship on 6figs.