By Mike Inganamort
Samsung, the South Korean technology giant, has announced that after forty years in Bergen County, it will relocate to Plano, Texas, taking approximately 1,000 high-paying jobs with it.
The decision represents a remarkable turnaround.
Not even a year ago, politicians gathered in Englewood Cliffs to celebrate Samsung’s new headquarters and praise the company for remaining in New Jersey despite the difficult business climate those same politicians helped create.
Sadly, it took less than a year for reality to set in.
New Jersey’s highest-in-America corporate tax rate was no match for Texas. Should these 1,000 employees all relocate, they will find themselves paying a fraction of the taxes they paid here.
There’s no spinning this: it is a black eye for New Jersey.
You can be sad about it. You can be angry about it. But my plea is that you do not resign yourself to it. Because decline is not inevitable. Decline is a conscious choice. And so is growth.
Assembly Republicans have repeatedly introduced legislation to reduce New Jersey’s Corporate Business Tax and make our state more competitive, but those proposals have consistently been blocked by the Democratic majority.
In fact, that’s how we got here: the 25-year Democratic Majority decided that New Jersey would have the highest business taxes in America – so we do. It’s as simple as that.
Now in my third year in the State Assembly, I’ve repeatedly heard the argument that businesses will tolerate New Jersey’s high taxes because we make up for it with our talented workforce, prime location, and good pizza.
Time and again, that argument has been proven wrong.
Honeywell moved its corporate headquarters from Morris Plains to Charlotte in 2018, taking around 200 jobs with it. ExxonMobil moved its Clinton research facility to Houston in 2024, and its legal domicile to Texas this year. Anhsueser-Busch announced the closure of its historic Newark brewery in January 2026.
Less than a decade ago, New Jersey was home to 25 Fortune 500 companies. Today, that number has fallen to 18.
How many more companies need to leave New Jersey before we recognize that the conscious choice to maintain the highest taxes in America is a bad one? And how many after that before we try something different?
My heart breaks for the 1,000 workers and their families affected by Samsung’s decision – not because this was beyond our control, but because it was very much within it.
New Jersey deserves better.
