Cboe Global Markets Inc. Chairman and CEO Ed Tilly is willing to move the exchange operator's primary data center out of New Jersey if a tax on financial transactions is enacted there.

The Garden State is considering legislation to enact a tax of $0.0025 per financial transaction on institutions that process at least 10,000 trades in New Jersey annually, a bill that Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy has said he supports as a way of improving the state's fiscal health. But the proposal has sparked a swift response from exchange operators like Cboe and its rivals, which operate their primary data centers out of northern New Jersey.

"Quite honestly, I don't think the industry will put up with one state taxing all of the customers in the U.S. market," Tilly said Sept. 15 during the virtual Barclays Global Financial Services Conference, according to a transcript. "I would have to predict that we would all, unfortunately, leave New Jersey for a place where our customers would be in a better position than if we stayed."

Chicago-based Cboe has teamed up with fellow exchange runners Intercontinental Exchange Inc. and Nasdaq Inc. to form the Coalition to Prevent the Taxing of Retirement Savings, a group intended to fight the floated New Jersey tax. The group is currently planning an industry-wide test for Sept. 26 to make sure the exchanges' backup data centers in Chicago would be able to handle a full day of trading. NYSE has even gone so far to say that it is transitioning one of its exchanges onto its Chicago data centers for the following week, a move designed to show New Jersey just how seamlessly it could move out of the state.

"We're not a fan. We'll be fighting this and raising awareness," Tilly said. "But it is something that's caught the attention of just about every participant at this point."