Tax Dodgers Stashing $814 Million in South Dakota Trusts

The Wall Street Journal updates us on the treasure that tax-dodging plutocrats are hiding in South Dakota:

South Dakota is one of a handful of states, including Wyoming, Nevada, and Alaska, that have no income tax and allow people to set up trusts to also be a beneficiary of them. Proponents say the state offers a host of other benefits for trusts—including protection of assets from creditors and the ability to last forever—that tip the scales in its favor.

It has become an increasingly popular place for the superrich to park their wealth, including many who don’t work in private equity. Assets in South Dakota trust companies totaled $814 billion as of the end of 2024, nearly five times where they stood at the end of 2014, according to state data [Miriam Gottfried, “Why Private-Equity Millionaires Love South Dakota,” Wall Street Journal, 2025.12.26].

Wealthy elites have quintupled their tax-free hoard in South Dakota over the last ten years. They certainly haven’t quintupled whatever meager benefit the stashing of those funds may do for the general welfare of the state that makes their tax dodge possible.

Quintupled in ten years—that’s over 16% annual growth. At that rate, the stash at year-end 2025 should be $944 billion; a year from now, over a trillion. If we raided those piggy banks, we could hand out a million dollars to every man, woman, and child in South Dakota. Or if we took just 1% of that hidden wealth, a trivial annual service charge for the privilege of parking such enormous wealth on our territory and avoiding the far more onerous taxes of other jurisdictions, we could pay for reducing property taxes by 50%, far more serious, budget-neutral property tax relief than has been floated by any of our elected leaders.

But no—South Dakota public officials think we have a patriotic duty to help the superrich evade their patriotic duty to pay taxes. South Dakota officials choose instead to help the rich get richer while the poor stay poor.