I hate to belabor this, but I'm going to belabor it. Everybody is slobbering over Northrop Grumman CEO Wesley Bush to try to get him to move the company's headquarters to Maryland. He's supposed to be choosing between Maryland and Virginia.
Here is all you need to know about what will happen. Bush, who is succeeding Ron Sugar as Northrop's boss, will make about $20 million a year. (Sugar made $18 million last year and $20 million in 2008.) Let's assume for argument's sake that the $20 million is all ordinary income and that what gets reported in the proxy will be the same as what shows up on Bush's W2. (It won't be, but gross oversimplification here does not falsify the larger point.)
If he lives in Maryland he's going to pay at least $500,000 more a year in personal income tax, thanks mainly to local income taxes that Virginia doesn't have. And I'm not counting the Maryland's millionaire tax, which is supposed to disappear this year. Where would you put the headquarters?