In a retiring state

A plan for considering, if anyone would

THERE SEEMS to be a Top 10 list for everything, including pizza toppings and dog breeds. Some of these lists are questionable. But we saw one the other day put out by WalletHub, so maybe it wasn’t just clickbait. (WalletHub is a personal finance website. It has real people working on quarterly credit card data and city research reports, among other things.)

This time the headline was: The Top 10 states in which to retire.

Sounded like a quick read. Surely Arkansas could crack the Top 10 in that category, right? This is a four-season state, with red-state taxes, an arts scene on the uptick, with outdoors activities not just limited to hunting and fishing, but of biking and hiking and mountain climbing. So maybe there’s not a lot of snowboarding in these latitudes, but who retires to snowboard?

Spoiler alert: Arkansas didn’t make the Top 10.

It broke down like this:

1. Virginia

2. Florida

3. Colorado

4. Wyoming

5. Delaware

6. New Hampshire

7. South Dakota

8. Minnesota

9. Idaho

10. North Dakota

Some of us might have issues with the list. (Delaware? South Dakota?) But WalletHub explained itself. It took into consideration the cost of living, the cost of in-home services, museums and theaters per capita, life expectancy, property-crime rates, etc.

NB: Arkansas was noted by the same outfit for being a Top 10 “least expensive” place to live. But in considering the other factors, Arkansas came in at No. 41.

We could do better. If we only would. We wouldn’t make specific suggestions just to be pushed up or down some website’s Top 10 list. Sounds too Las Vegas. (Take that, Nevada!) But there are real things the government can do to make Arkansas more attractive. And lowering crime and convincing people to live healthy is only part of the work.

NOW THAT there’s a new governor in the mansion in Little Rock, maybe we should float this idea one more time. (Until the next time.) We’ve been floating it for years now, and it hasn’t got much traction among the political elite. But we haven’t been given a good reason why it languishes. That is:

Why not do away with income taxes for a period of five years for new residents to Arkansas? We believe that such a news item would not only make the national papers (what publicity!) but also encourage people to move here. And it would benefit those who live here now because those newcomers would be paying state sales taxes and local property taxes. And they would open bank accounts here, giving banks more money to lend, with all the multiplier effects.

We could be the first state in these several states to make this offer, which would give Arkansas a considerable advantage in recruiting.

This moratorium on income taxes would disappear after five years, and the regular tax rates would kick in after that. Arkansas would immediately become competitive with other states, and not just border states. Doubtless such a plan, if implemented, would raise eyebrows from Portland to Portland, Maine to Oregon.

Since these people are not living or paying taxes here now, granting this exemption shouldn’t cost Arkansas anything. Except maybe the cost for an advertisement in The Wall Street Journal—announcing the news of the boom in the Natural State.

To our knowledge, no other state has tried this. And we still haven’t been given a good reason why.

So let’s do it. The next legislative session sounds like a good place to start.