High California Taxes to Drive Phil Mickelson Somewhere Else?

That somewhere else could be another state, or a state of retirement. Mickelson cites legislation that raised the state tax rate to 13.3% on incomes over $1 million as the reason he severed ties with a group that owns the San Diego Padres.

“If you add up all the federal and you look at the disability and the unemployment and the Social Security and state, my tax rate is 62, 63 percent,” Mickelson said. “So I’ve got to make some decisions on what to do.”

Mickelson, who lives with his wife, Amy, and their three children outside San Diego, his hometown, said he planned to elaborate on his comments in more detail this week when the tour stopped in his backyard, at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, Calif.

“It’s been an interesting off-season,” said Mickelson, who cracked open a window into his thought process last week during a teleconference. Asked if he has considered following his United States Ryder Cup teammate Steve Stricker, another 40-something golfer, into semiretirement, Mickelson replied: “You know, I think that we’re all going to have our own way of handling things, handling time in our career, our family, handling what’s going on the last couple of months politically. I think we’re all going to have to find things that work for us.”

In December, Mickelson, who was part of a group that had bought the San Diego Padres four months earlier, abruptly announced that he was no longer involved in the business deal. His reversal came shortly after California voters approved Proposition 30, which imposed a 13.3 percent tax rate on incomes of more than $1 million.

Asked Sunday if the election results played a role in his decision to sever his ties with the Padres’ ownership group, Mickelson replied, “Yeah, absolutely.”

In vowing to discuss his thinking in more detail at Torrey Pines, Mickelson said: “I’ll probably be a little more open to it because San Diego is where I live, it’s where the Padre thing was a possibility and it’s where my family is. And it just seems like a better fit than right here off of 18 in Palm Springs.”

It’s not just millionaires like Phil who are leaving California; in 2011, more than 100,000 people left than came to the state. Higher taxes aren’t going to help that equation.

via MIckelson, Citing Taxes, Hints at Stepping Away – NYTimes.com.