The decision of the Stanley Tool Works to move its corporate headquarters from Connecticut to Bermuda and Barbados to take advantage of lower tax rates there is being denounced as “unconscionable” and “outrageous” by the editors of the New York Times. The Connecticut attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, is suing to stop the move. And Congressional Democrats are trying to pass a law aimed at preventing companies like Stanley from reincorporating in tax havens.

What’s really unconscionable and outrageous, though, are the high tax rates in Connecticut and in America as a whole that are causing American companies to flee. Stanley’s chairman, John Trani, explained, “Being competitive is the best way to preserve U.S. jobs. A legislative overhaul of the tax system is preferred, but until that happens we must proceed in the best available manner.”

New Yorkers of a certain age can chuckle at seeing companies fleeing Connecticut for lower taxes elsewhere. After all, there was a period not too long ago when New York City firms, particularly in the financial services sector, were fleeing New York for Greenwich, Connecticut, which has certain somewhat arcane tax advantages for certain businesses and individuals (one involves something called “single factor apportionment”). Even today, Connecticut’s Department of Economic and Community Development has a whole team devoted to “Out of State Business Recruitment.” Its Web site boasts, “Connecticut is committed to continuously improving the State’s business environment as evident by the 35% reduction in the corporate tax rate, which is the single largest reduction in any state’s rate over a five-year period. The current corporate tax rate is now 7.5%.”

New York plays the same game. The Web site of Empire State Development announces, “More Tax Incentives To Bring Your Business Here; Today, New York State’s corporate tax rate is approaching the lowest level since 1970, and is now one of the lowest in the northeast.” New York’s corporate income tax rate has been reduced to 7.5% from 9%, the site says.

If Connecticut is going to be luring businesses from New York by boasting about the Nutmeg State’s low tax rates, the Nutmeg politicians in Hartford seem like hypocrites to be crying foul and running to court when a Connecticut company decides to pick up and move. So, too, does the New York Times Company, which is headquartered in New York but has no less than 28 separate subsidiaries — from The New York Times Syndication Sales Corporation to the NYT Broadcast Holdings, LLC — that are organized in Delaware for business reasons just as logical as the ones that drove Stanley Works to Bermuda.

The larger point here is not just about hypocrisy but about policy. Corporate income taxes just get passed along to customers, employees, and shareholders, who already pay sales taxes, income taxes, and capital gains taxes. They are a double tax. This is why the Treasury secretary, Paul O’Neill, has been advancing the idea of abolishing corporate income taxes at the federal level. That done, the American states could go about the business of putting through the tax cuts needed to lure Bermuda and Barbados companies to headquarter themselves here.