331–340 of 622 posts
> the cost of housing is one-third of Bay Area prices and the absence of a state personal income tax amounts to a 13.3% raise for top earners. This point always makes me laugh because anyone who lives in affluent TX neighborhoods knows your property tax is _enormous_ and usually makes up for a majority of state income tax you save. They still need to pay for roads and schools, right?
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To be fair, here's the complete list of companies in the known universe that don't try to avoid taxes or regulation: [error data not found] There's a cost of moving. California's taxes and regulations are bad, bad enough to force many out, but not all. If things continue on their present course, even Google and Amazon, who personally like the political climate there, will have to start looking elsewhere.
> Amazon Headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Not California.
Traditionally this stuff has meant race to the bottom in terms of taxes and regulations. That is terrible. But if it instead helps wake up California to actually rezone, densify, remove prop 13, and improve social services, that could be quite good.
Prop 13 is one of the few reasons many could consider staying in California, vs having to pay property taxes on the bubble prices here. Property taxes do go up at what amounts to reasonable inflation numbers.
The single best thing California could do for Californians would be to sunset prop13 protections.
HP and Oracle don’t exactly represent the heart of Silicon Valley today and what makes it special/unique. I actually think zombie corporations like Oracle, companies that haven’t innovated in decades and instead rely on an army of sales people to sell legacy software, are somewhat the antithesis of Silicon Valley which is really about real technological innovation and disruption at it’s core. I know there are lots of…
HP moving to Texas is the corporate version of my grandparents retiring to Florida.
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Is there any evidence that the people moving are responsible for the bad policies? Something tells me the NIMBYs that bought their homes decades ago and pay $3.50 in annual property taxes aren't going anywhere.
High taxes, high cost of living, and bad policies were the primary reasons I left CA. Property tax assessment was 1/6th of fair market value (thank you prop 13). Still decided to leave. Got a house almost 3x the size for the same price, and no homeless tents everywhere is a nice bonus.
HP and Oracle don’t exactly represent the heart of Silicon Valley today and what makes it special/unique. I actually think zombie corporations like Oracle, companies that haven’t innovated in decades and instead rely on an army of sales people to sell legacy software, are somewhat the antithesis of Silicon Valley which is really about real technological innovation and disruption at it’s core. I know there are lots of…
Yeah literally nothing about Oracle is useful or innovative. It’s like the WalMart of tech companies; just kind of exists and has rested on its laurels for a decade+.
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Very true - here in Round Rock (outside Austin), it’s about 2.2% of the home value.
For quick comparison it's 1.18% in San Francisco. Property tax bill on a $2.7m house in SF is ~$32,400/yr, and the property tax bill on a $1.5m house in Austin would be around ~$33,000/yr.
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Universities help I think. Stanford, Berkeley &c. Many great public universities and many great universities!
The east coast has entire Ivy League and yet no Silicon Valley. Also, how do you explain Seattle?
> the cost of housing is one-third of Bay Area prices and the absence of a state personal income tax amounts to a 13.3% raise for top earners. This point always makes me laugh because anyone who lives in affluent TX neighborhoods knows your property tax is _enormous_ and usually makes up for a majority of state income tax you save. They still need to pay for roads and schools, right?
The property tax being double is still cheaper when the housing costs are 1/3 though, right? I guess if you Prop 13'd your way into a low assessment, then the math doesn't quite work that way, but for someone who bought a Bay Area house recently, then moved to Texas, the net difference is still a tax reduction.
Austin property taxes are 1.8%. SF property taxes are 0.65%.
For it to breakeven, just on property tax, Austin property taxes on a house 1/3 the cost of an SF house would have to be 3*0.65 or 1.95%.
So people in Austin effectively pay less or the same on property tax than people in San Francisco.
I might add, house prices in Austin/Dallas/Houston are often less than 1/3rd the price of houses in the Bay Area for comparable quality. In Austin, median housing price is $365K, and the average sq footage of a house in Austin is about 70% larger than one in SF.