Income Village, the No-Tax Enclave

Incline Village today is one of the wealthiest small communities in America, and a big reason is written into Nevada law. Nevada charges no state income tax. It also has no state capital gains tax, no estate tax, no inheritance tax, and no gift tax.

For people with enormous fortunes, especially those relocating from high tax California just over the ridge, moving to the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe can save staggering sums. That advantage has transformed this once modest resort town. Its lakefront homes are now owned by some of the richest people on the planet, and news reports have linked figures from the technology and finance worlds to mansions here.

Locals have been known to call it Income Village, only half joking. It is a striking twist for a place whose name comes from a vanished nineteenth century logging tramway. The very shoreline that the reclusive millionaire George Whittell once kept wild and undeveloped now anchors some of the most expensive real estate in the country.

As you drive these quiet streets beneath the pines, you are passing through a modern gold rush of a different kind, drawn not by silver in the mountains but by the absence of a tax collector.