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Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

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Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Illinois voters defeated an initiative to implement graduated income tax in the November 2020 election: https://ballotpedia.org/Illinois_Allow_for_Graduated_Income_... Agreed the state has financial issues, but it remains unclear if the upper middle class will bear the responsibility.

Anyone that has money and lack of political power. Middle class is a vague term, but currently, a flat % income tax takes evenly from rich and poor, so it benefits the rich. What will happen now is that IL will increase then 5% income tax to 6% or whatever they have to go meet their needs, and so it will continue to benefit the rich. Until it gets to a point where the lower income people realize they can make the ric…

Only the extremely wealthy would leave. An average person does not move their state of residence just to save $1,000 on state taxes. That could be disruptive: leaving family and friends, your job, etc. All to save a grand.

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#562
post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is great. A high property tax keeps the price of housing down (what people will pay for a house is cost per month, basically mortgage plus property tax), makes people want to have new housing built so that housing prices don't go up, and promotes a general attitude of anti-NIMBYism. Just the opposite of California with its low property tax and very aristocratic prop 13 problem.

I totally agree and I think property taxes are way more fair and equitable for a society than income taxes. Usually we tax behaviors we want to curb. Income taxes disincentivize people from earning more, whereas property taxes are a consumption tax. In my mind this makes way more sense, and there's good data to suggest property taxes are the best/most efficient way to gain needed revenue for a city but do the least "…

How do income taxes disincentivize people from earning more? It's always better to make more money than to make less, even if you're paying a percentage of it to the government (or whomever).

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need an MBA for the financial/high level business knowledge requirements (though many people involved in this have one), but the people networks that MBA programs provide are very beneficial in getting connected to the right person at the right company.

So MBA actually means MBA from top 10, maybe top 15 school? I can’t imagine the network being too useful for the 25th best MBA program. My friends have only recently graduated from their MBAs. Will be interesting to see if their networks help.

The main value of an MBA is the network. I think lower tier schools can work well if they are tight knit and the graduates tend to stay local to the school. The top tier schools will just have people making more money at more "prestigious" companies.

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A major 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…

> SF property taxes are 0.65%.

The base CA property tax rate is 1%, so it can never be lower than that. It's nearly always higher since localities can add assorted fees to it (so of course they do).

You might have a long-time owner paying 0.65% due to prop13 slowing the year-to-year increase, but as a new purchaser your CA property tax will always be >1%.

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#565
post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A major 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…

> SF property taxes are 0.65%. The base CA property tax rate is 1%, so it can never be lower than that. It's nearly always higher since localities can add assorted fees to it (so of course they do). You might have a long-time owner paying 0.65% due to prop13 slowing the year-to-year increase, but as a new purchaser your CA property tax will always be >1%.

> The base CA property tax rate is 1%, so it can never be lower than that.

Prop 13 means lot of people are paying much less than 1%

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#566
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There aren’t many $1.5M houses in Austin. In Round Rock (home of Dell), the highest price you’ll find is around $800k for a 5600 square ft house with premium upgrades.

According to zillow there are 300 homes over $1.5M for sale right now in Austin. Surely many more not currently listed for sale.

Sorry for the long link..

https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/?searchQueryState=%7B%...

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your Sunnyvale house is worth significantly more than the median house price in NY State. Your post confirms that Prop 13 is very good for long-term homeowners. What are you getting away with? Paying less for schools and common infrastructure than your neighbors who bought in the last decade. They're probably paying 3X more tax than you are, right?

It's still a 3/2 house. An equivalent house on, say Long Island, would have lower taxes.

An equivalent house in Utah would have even lower taxes. So?

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a convoluted system to tax people based on property while still making it means based. What was the reasoning they gave for not just using an income based system, which should more implicitly align with one's means?

Makes gaming the system harder. Once you're rich enough you could only take compensation every other (3rd/5th/etc) year and pay property tax only then. Unlike compensation once the property tax year's gone it's gone, there's no deferring situation (eg, vis a vis deferring comp where the big chunk in later years would still be taxed) It's not an unusual situation in urban CA for an elderly person to have bought a hous…

"Once you're rich enough..."

Which means you had to recieve that money at some point and it would have been taxed.

I'm sure rich people can avoid or find a way to deduct property taxes anyways. For example, setting up an anonymous Wyoming LLC or some form of trust.

It sounds like the system you are describing for the elderly is specific to CA.

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#569
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because CA has perfect weather which is the one thing that is completely impossible to replicate anywhere else.

The 50 square miles of SF has perfect weather, if you're not put off by cold and clingy fog. The other 160,000 square miles is as much of a mixed bag as any other state (with the exception of Hawaii, which actually has perfect weather).

> The 50 square miles of SF has perfect weather, if you're not put off by cold and clingy fog.

I'd say San Francisco has the worst weather of the area, nearly always cold and foggy as you say.

As soon as you go slightly south toward Silicon Valley or slightly north towards Santa Rosa the weather improves dramatically.

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I am using the English language in a very straightforward manner. english is not my first language. economic literacy wrt this topic seems irrelevant. >After Prop 13 passed, a big chunk of the state revenue was tied up in propping up local governments. wrong. property taxes are diverted to the state's public education program through a complicated set of formulas called LCFF.[1] it collects all the property taxes. d…

> economic literacy wrt this topic seems irrelevant. It is supremely relevant. You are advocating a regressive policy that hampers growth, and it's easy to figure this out with economic thinking. > wrong. property taxes are diverted to the state's public education program through a complicated set of formulas called LCFF.[1] That doesn't say I'm wrong. It just shows the formula by which the state props up each local…

> You are advocating a regressive policy that hampers growth, and it's easy to figure this out with economic thinking.

How? How is it a regressive policy? It is not like you are taxing real wealth or real income. The value of a property that is a domicile is taxed Ad Valorem. You are taxing a non income. It is not regressive but is in fact, a punitive tax.

A regressive tax policy only applies to that which has entered the economic circulation. An occupied home that is considered a owner occupied residence and generates NO income when punitively taxes is NOT progressive policy.

I don’t want easy. I want facts. Stating something doesn’t make a case for punitive taxes.

> That doesn't say I'm wrong. It just shows the formula by which the state props up each local government.

Yes. It shows that you are wrong. Because it’s NOT for local govt but for regional and state coffers. If you had looked into LCFF you’d have understood that.

>You're making at least three mistakes. The first is that you assume all property is residential.

That is not a mistake. I had stated elsewhere that my argument is only for owner occupied residential properties. Not for commercial properties or rental/investment properties. I am also not in favour of prop 13 benefits being passed on to children of the original owners.

>The second is that you assume that all property is developed. Due to Prop 13, there are several undeveloped lots with keep out signs in my neighborhood of million dollar houses.

I don’t think undeveloped lots should be punitively taxed. Property rights are the corner stone of capitalism and America. If you change that, we will have to accept that we have to amend the constitution.

>The third is that you assume that apartments can't be redeveloped to house more people.

It is not an assumption. High density occupation is not sustainable or desirable. High density homes are suitable for transitional homes and senior housing where the resource spending and consumption activity doesn’t stress the public facilities.

Example: have a high density homes for families in a city that can’t support playgrounds or schools is a bad idea. We have seen in the past that as high density increases for family homes with children, expenditure for public schools also increase. The biggest expenditure of public schools are not salaries and wages, but the pension liabilities as unions negotiate increases every year that gets accrued as pensions. This is absolutely unsustainable and will plunge the state into debt.

>Prop 13 increases the cost of doing so to not only the fixed cost of redeveloping the property but the ongoing cost of significantly higher taxes.

That makes no sense. Your entire premise is based upon the virtue of taxation. It has never occurred to you that the functioning of a state that relies on higher and higher states of taxation is abnormal and odd.

Example: The city and state has done nothing to increase the revenues of ..let’s say..google. Yet, the google employees have filled the state coffers with all manner of taxes. The state of California has had a windfall with taxable income. And yet. YET, they can’t manage their finances.

Instead of trying to keep patching the waterfall of deficit with a bandaid over the rocks, ask WHY?

The solution to our problems is not ask the Dept of taxes to act like our henchmen to collect taxes from those whom we feel are not like us.

>You're falling for a marketing trick the proponents of the initiative intended for rubes.

That’s a dumbass insult and I won’t respond to it.

>The correct way to keep the few old people in their homes is via tax exemptions, as I've already explained. It is not to give incumbent landowners a huge competitive advantage over new landowners, leading to de facto serfdom.

This makes no sense. Rubes, marketing trick, serfdom. I will address this when it makes sense to me.

>Who said that? These landlords are producing massive unearned profits. The rents go up with demand, but their costs stay low. Removing prop 13 would bring their profits in line with newer landlords.

Define Landlords. Do you mean the random person who rents a second home to pad income or real estate/rental firms that rents out apartments to people or commercial building owners?

Anytime you tax someone, that is going to be passed down to the renter. The renter or non house owner is the most subsidized person here. Because public schools are funded by property taxes. And public school expenditure is being eaten up by union negotiated pension liabilities for years to come when your children and their children will still be paying the debts. If ever there was a Ponzi scheme.

>This is economically nonsensical. Who is going to pay the taxes to take care of the elderly if not the children?

You know what sounds nonsensical? When someone puts a fixed amount in the bank for thirty years and when they ask for it when they need it, the bank says that they would be happy to lend it as a high interest loan.

That’s exactly what you are suggesting. Who educated these ‘children’? The elderly have more net worth than the children upon whom millions were spent for education.

Who paid Medicare, social security taxes, 401k contributions that became CAPITAL that the next generations enjoy. They did so they don’t have to pay more taxes.

What you are arguing for is like asking someone to make a deposit and when the time comes for withdrawal, you want to collect interest.

>The state has every incentive to make these children as productive as possible, which means educating them.

This is the problem. Parents expect the state to be the nanny state.

It doesn’t seem to have done a good job, has it? Because it looks like the educated millions of youth can’t even manage their finances and want to run back to the nanny state that raised them to impose more taxes where in fact they should be the ones paying taxes.

Someone who graduated school in 2000 should be able to pay the taxes to educate their generation’s children in public schools. The elderly have already done the job of educating the previous generation.

The youth and state are using each other as henchmen and acting like thugs to separate those who have paid their dues from their assets. If this isnt co-ordinated thuggery, I don’t know what is... the nanny and ward robbing the parent blind.

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