221–230 of 318 posts
I'm not sure I would recommend Texas either. Use tax means you pay annual taxes on everything you own, plus sales tax on any affiliate deals; franchise tax will hit you hard even if your not making a dime because it's based on 'net worth' and not on profit. It's a tough place to be.
Everything your business owns? I've never paid a state tax when living in Texas (except for sales taxes), but I don't own land there.
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Thanks, but no thanks. I've experienced New York's laws on intellectual property ownership. Any programmer who thinks that they should have any right to have "their own time" and "side projects" should leave for a more friendly state. Like California. I am not joking.
Could you elaborate a bit more on your experiences?
Can we just hurry up and address the real problem: California's constitution? We should just burn that flawed thing and start over. As I understand it, one of the major problems with California is that the reasonable-sounding idea that citizens should be allowed to amend the constitution through a ballot proposition has backfired and led to all sorts of special interests amending the constitution to protect their own…
I also think states and locales should be able to declare bankruptcy and restructure their obligations. Currently there is no clear way to get out from under prior bad governance. Here's a good article about how San Bernardino is trying: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/13/us-bernardino-bank... > a third of the city's 210,000 people live below the poverty line, making it the poorest city of its size in Californ…
I'm not sure I would recommend Texas either. Use tax means you pay annual taxes on everything you own, plus sales tax on any affiliate deals; franchise tax will hit you hard even if your not making a dime because it's based on 'net worth' and not on profit. It's a tough place to be.
The bit about use tax isn't accurate. If you don't pay Texas sales tax on something, which varies from 6.25% to 8.25% depending on the jurisdiction, you are supposed to pay the difference between Texas sales tax and the tax you paid elsewhere. You do this once, not annually. This is not unique to Texas. Use taxes exist in almost every other state, including California and New York. Like everywhere else, use tax is of…
So if you aren't one of those then no, you would not pay franchise tax, but most small businesses do.
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Electricity is being worked on, as that press release indicates. On the hottest day or two of the year, the power might go out for a little bit. It's not a big deal. Water is going to be the biggest issue this legislative session. California has similar water problems. Schools... are complicated. That one might not get fixed, but performance is better correlated with household income than education spending. Roads ar…
I did half of your roundtrip. Grew up in the Bay Area, moved to Texas. Swore I'd end up moving back but seven years later I have absolutely no intention of doing so.
A lot of the comments are characterizing this as a money grab by the state. To me, it sounds more like the unintended consequences of a clever lawsuit and/or a poorly-crafted piece of tax-break legislation. People should be advised that California has a lot of clever lawyers who work to find and exploit holes in legislation.
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What are some good cities in Western Michigan?
Grand Rapids is the biggest of them. It's a nice area, decent and growing downtown, lots of activities, good housing stock, growing diversity, etc.
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"First of all, I don't know about you, but I don't come to HN and try to have a somewhat intelligent conversation just to be called stupid for expressing an opinion." He didn't call you stupid for expressing an opinion, he called that particular view stupid.
Saying that a particular view is stupid without offering any additional information or another viewpoint is... well... This isn't 7th grade — come up with another word that really means what you want to say. There are a lot of ways to disagree with someone and/or an idea without the derogatory language.
On a related note - California capital gains tax is going up by 50% this year[1] (24.3% to 37.1%). That's a big jump and I haven't heard many people talk about it. In the short term it doesn't have much effect but in the long run it will reduce the amount of capital in the Valley available for angel investment and bootstrapping. [1] http://jacobexmachina.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-fiscal-cliff-...
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Thanks, but no thanks. I've experienced New York's laws on intellectual property ownership. Any programmer who thinks that they should have any right to have "their own time" and "side projects" should leave for a more friendly state. Like California. I am not joking.
> Any programmer who thinks that they should have any right to have "their own time" and "side projects" should leave for a more friendly state. Like California. In New York, you can negotiate a contract to get this clause - it's quite common. The only difference is that contracts without the exemption (ie, total assignments) are considered enforceable, whereas in California, they aren't. That doesn't mean that Calif…
First of all in California it is against the law to fail to inform people of their rights. Thus even in the cases when contracts include those clauses, the impact is severely watered down.
Secondly in New York, even contracts without these clauses by default have them implicitly included.
Thirdly the "claim we're working on everything" issue is real in California, but only for people working for large corporations. People working for small companies can usually make a good case that they are working on something different.
Fourth, there is a real difference in culture. In California it is common for people to do things like"start companies on the side", and therefore the natural response upon finding that someone has done so is to not try to contest it unless they have specific cause to. By contrast in New York this is not common, which means that employers are much, much more likely to try to explore their legal options.
I am sure that it is possible to live in New York, sign careful contracts, and find people who will be supportive. However if management changes, or different lawyers examine those contracts, or someone just does the calculation that you won't be able to afford to assert your rights, I believe that your odds of running into trouble in New York are significantly higher than in California.
Maybe I'm overreacting. But once burned, twice shy. This is among the reasons why I never again want to live in New York. (The weather would be another. The fact that it never quiets enough for me to sleep soundly would be a third.)