State of Wyoming Billionaires in the wild

Status: 20.06.2021 09:34 a.m.

In Jackson Hole in the US state of Wyoming, the fox and the rabbit say goodnight – and recently the richest people in the country too. You will be attracted by unspoiled nature – and low taxes.

From Jule Käppel, ARD studio Washington

Real estate agent Andrew Ellett makes the dream of a ranch in the wilderness of the northern Rocky Mountains come true. Millionaires and billionaires come to him when they are looking for the perfect piece of land in the middle of nowhere: he has it.

“On this property, you can saddle your horses and ride right into the woods for hundreds of miles,” says Ellet. The property includes 120 acres of land, a main house with several hundred square feet of living space, a three bedroom guest house, and there is no limit to the number of horses on the ranch. This is also an important selling point here in the western United States, in the state of Wyoming. The price: $ 4.6 million. A good deal compared to the noble wooden house on the river for the super rich who love fly fishing. That costs almost 18 million.

Exclusive properties in the middle of nowhere

The agent says that’s the best thing about Jackson Hole: You can be close to town and still feel so rural. The Engel und Völkers broker can offer a lonely ranch a maximum of three times a year. Only three percent of the land in the parish is private. The rest is not for sale. Mountains and wide valleys, forests and crystal clear lakes are home to elks, herds of bison, bears – and wildflowers dance in the meadows in the summer breeze. An idyll with three ski areas and two national parks on the doorstep. One of them is the famous Yellowstone National Park.

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Natural idyll with a low tax burden

The richest people in the United States move to this area in the north of Cowboy State. But they don’t just love the landscape. The community is one of the largest tax havens in the United States, explains Ben Williamson. “Property tax is minimal, there is no income tax.” The 28-year-old Williamson is against the fact that untouched nature becomes an investment.

The executive director of the Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative finds it “absurd” that this isolated region has the highest per capita income in the country – more than $ 250,000. It’s almost a third less in Manhattan.

In the nearby Grand Teton National Park, grazing bison radiate the power of untouched nature. Image: AFP

Rich new citizens make life difficult for others

The folks who aren’t in the richest 1 percent have a hard time getting along, Williamson says. Because in the past few years rents have exploded along with market prices for luxury real estate. During the corona pandemic, even more people were relocated from the metropolises on the west and east coast. In addition to the hedge fund managers, CEOs and film actresses, the home office employees with a lot of money have now joined them. The apartments have become too expensive for the long-established residents of the town who take care of the ranches, hotel guests or hospital patients. They move to the neighboring communities, drive over the pass to work for almost an hour. Sometimes there is no getting through in snow. And then Jackson Hole, the dream place of billionaires, is cut off from the world for days