Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“I’m moving out of state”: employees are trying to avoid California income tax

recode.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 146 posts

Re: “I’m moving out of state”: employees are trying to avoid California income tax

#111

Post by scottlocklin »

logfromblammo wrote: post #102
scottlocklin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, have you ever actually been to California? The infrastructure was all built in the 1960s, and appears to have been abandoned as thoroughly as the Roman aqueduct system after the barbarian invasions. Easily the most corrupt state I've ever seen; most of the money goes to buying votes.

If anyone lives in a state that is not corrupt, please raise your hand. Don't be shy. We promise that we won't move in and ruin it for you all at once. ...No one? Corruption follows the money. Highly paid jobs follow the money. By an argument purely by correlations and assumptions, I'd say that most of the people on HN have highly paid jobs in states with plenty of people, and plenty of money to spend on the tech ind…

New Hampshire is great; unlike California corruption, whatever hypothetical corruption there is here, I don't have to pay for with my tax dollars. The place is run with Prussian efficiency, so hypothetical corruption doesn't impact my daily life. It's an astounding upgrade.

Unlike California, the roads work (the potholes start on 93 as soon as you cross the border to Massachusetts). Let's do a full stop there. California basically doesn't have weather, meaning the simple governmental function of road maintenance should be trivial. Here we have snowstorms (yes, yes California does too ... in the mountains where nobody lives), and somehow the roads are vastly better. Building new lanes or new stretches of highway also takes months instead of decades. Beyond that, despite the existence of copwatch in places like Berkeley, and the lack thereof here, somehow NH police are not insane stormtroopers. Housing outside of Portsmouth is zoned to be easy to build in, so property is what it should cost. Small businesses aren't regulated to death. Streets are safe despite the fact that you can walk around with a submachine gun in your pocket. Water is clean. There is no pollution to speak of. There aren't vast seasonal forest fires because the state doesn't have lunatics preventing normal forestry management practices. I've been here a year and there have been no pitched street battles between gangs of thugs over ... people talking ... in the entire state; a regular fall occurrence in Berkeley (and no doubt other towns in California). Oh yeah, and it took me 20 minutes to get a NH drivers license and register a car; something that would probably take me multiple days in California.

You can talk about corruption as if it is "well this many people went to jail for corruption" -IMO that is a lousy proxy for corruption. Nothing works in California; it is "failed state" level corruption; anarcho-tyrrany except for Google/Facebook oligarch tier people who probably don't pay California taxes either. If I could bribe minor officials like I could in other failed states, it would actually be an improvement over the way California works now. California is an IRL dystopia. Nice weather though, and some interesting people live there out of what I assume is inertia and provincialism.

Re: “I’m moving out of state”: employees are trying to avoid California income tax

#112

Post by dragonwriter »

castlecrasher2 wrote: post #108
pjc50 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two out of the three of those are deferred compensation and linked to earlier wage deductions.

Unless I'm mistaken and the national debt is actually the national assets, the money is obtained through taxes now rather than taxes before.

> Unless I'm mistaken and the national debt is actually the national assets, the money is obtained through taxes now rather than taxes before.

Well, the part of the national debt at issue (at least as regards Social Security and Medicare) is also part of the national assets; since “intragovernmental debt” sits on both sides of the balance sheet.

Re: “I’m moving out of state”: employees are trying to avoid California income tax

#113

Post by dragonwriter »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #90
cpursley wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how effective the state is at spending the money Exactly! I'm okay with higher taxes as long as the jurisdictions who collect them are good stewards of the money. First, governments must prove to me that they can efficiency provide promised services before convincing me to hand over more. How is it that other nations/jurisdictions can have lower taxes than the USA, but still manage to provide for universal healthca…

>I just don't understand where the tax money is going in the USA at both federal and state levels. You can find it online with a simple Google search. Pensions, medicare and social security are the bulk of the spending.

> Pensions, medicare and social security are the bulk of the spending.

In aggregate, less than half, even if you add Medicaid and other public health spending on top of Medicare, so not the bulk.

Re: “I’m moving out of state”: employees are trying to avoid California income tax

#114

Post by EpicEng »

skh wrote: post #81
ohithereyou wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the grandparent poster, but a 13% increase in Federal income tax would apply to everyone in the country, regardless of where they live, and therefore would be fair. Punishing people who don't live in your state (only commute there for work and have an actual, bona fide residence elsewhere) is not fair.

Income gets taxed on where you earn it. It’s been that way for a very long time. This applies to everyone. Don’t see how it’s unfair. I’m certain OP knew this when taking the contract to work in California.

That's not true. I was a resident of TX for two years while still working for my SD company was not subject to CA state tax. If you're not present you don't pay.

Re: “I’m moving out of state”: employees are trying to avoid California income tax

#115

Post by skh »

EpicEng wrote: post #114
skh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income gets taxed on where you earn it. It’s been that way for a very long time. This applies to everyone. Don’t see how it’s unfair. I’m certain OP knew this when taking the contract to work in California.

That's not true. I was a resident of TX for two years while still working for my SD company was not subject to CA state tax. If you're not present you don't pay.

Right. That's what I said. You get taxed where you earn the money. If you aren't in California when you earn the money then you don't pay California tax. If you are in California when you earn the money then you pay California tax. (I know there are reciprocity laws among some of the states but there aren't between California and Texas.)

Re: “I’m moving out of state”: employees are trying to avoid California income tax

#116

Post by AnimalMuppet »

mikestew wrote: post #38
commandlinefan wrote: post #20

Yeah, the big fear here in Texas is that they're all going to move down here with their California liberal sensibilities and vote in a state income tax here, too.

Maybe you could walk me through the thought process of how a person fleeing an area for $REASON would then turn around and try to institute said $REASON in their new home. Because not a single Eastern European immigrant I knew in the 80s thought Communism was a good idea. So you’re either being facetious and I fell for it, or Texas could use a state income tax to bump up their public education game.

Imagine a continuum, with California at 0 and Texas at 100. You live in California, but you personally, are philosophically at 75. You leave California and move to Texas, because it's more your style. But when you get there, it's closer to what you want, but to you, it's too far the other direction. So you try (perhaps unconsciously) to move it partway toward California.

The locals don't agree, and don't like you trying to do so.

Note well: This does not mean that a state income tax idea would be a good idea or a bad one for Texas. It only means that it would be a foreign idea.

Re: “I’m moving out of state”: employees are trying to avoid California income tax

#117

Post by castlecrasher2 »

logfromblammo wrote: post #102
scottlocklin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, have you ever actually been to California? The infrastructure was all built in the 1960s, and appears to have been abandoned as thoroughly as the Roman aqueduct system after the barbarian invasions. Easily the most corrupt state I've ever seen; most of the money goes to buying votes.

If anyone lives in a state that is not corrupt, please raise your hand. Don't be shy. We promise that we won't move in and ruin it for you all at once. ...No one? Corruption follows the money. Highly paid jobs follow the money. By an argument purely by correlations and assumptions, I'd say that most of the people on HN have highly paid jobs in states with plenty of people, and plenty of money to spend on the tech ind…

According to this link someone posted https://www.justice.gov/criminal/file/1096306/download your hypothesis for money = corruption doesn't really hold water. The most corrupt areas (most arrests of government officials by federal law enforcement) per capita are Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

Re: “I’m moving out of state”: employees are trying to avoid California income tax

#118

Post by pandaman »

cptskippy wrote: post #36
scottlocklin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, have you ever actually been to California? The infrastructure was all built in the 1960s, and appears to have been abandoned as thoroughly as the Roman aqueduct system after the barbarian invasions. Easily the most corrupt state I've ever seen; most of the money goes to buying votes.

What specifically about the infrastructure are you objecting to besides the aesthetic?

Not the OP, but the ongoing typhus epidemic in LA would be near the head of my list.

Re: “I’m moving out of state”: employees are trying to avoid California income tax

#119

Post by AnimalMuppet »

skh wrote: post #88
kristianc wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll never get to that framing while taxation is presented in and of itself as an unalloyed good, and the Left is asking "What's the maximum we can tax people before they stop working?" or the new favorite from Saez et al "Okay, the rich might stop working a little, but how much are we prepared for them to stop working before we have to lower taxes?" My framing allows people to say 1. in response, if it is able to…

Your question used the word “entitled”. It is reminiscent of those who say that taxation is theft. Your framing does none of 1, 2, 3, and 4. I don’t understand the point of your first paragraph. It’s a caricature of people you call the Left. I have never seen anyone anywhere paint taxation as an unalloyed good in and of itself. Can I suggest that instead of talking in terms of Left/Right that some other dialog be use…

I have seen the (far?) Left say, quite recently and very publicly, that wealth inequality is an unalloyed bad, and that taxation is the answer. That's not quite "taxation is an unalloyed good", but it's definitely "you don't need (and shouldn't have) that money, so we'll take it".

Re: “I’m moving out of state”: employees are trying to avoid California income tax

#120

Post by logfromblammo »

scottlocklin wrote: post #111
logfromblammo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone lives in a state that is not corrupt, please raise your hand. Don't be shy. We promise that we won't move in and ruin it for you all at once. ...No one? Corruption follows the money. Highly paid jobs follow the money. By an argument purely by correlations and assumptions, I'd say that most of the people on HN have highly paid jobs in states with plenty of people, and plenty of money to spend on the tech ind…

New Hampshire is great; unlike California corruption, whatever hypothetical corruption there is here, I don't have to pay for with my tax dollars. The place is run with Prussian efficiency, so hypothetical corruption doesn't impact my daily life. It's an astounding upgrade. Unlike California, the roads work (the potholes start on 93 as soon as you cross the border to Massachusetts). Let's do a full stop there. Califo…

That's one anecdotal datum in support of the hypothesis: NH is #12 on the "not enough money to be corrupt" candidate list.

The NH economy is 3% the size of California's, with 5.7% the land area, and 3.4% the population. That suggests it has less than 3% the corruption opportunity, because the state still has to accomplish a lot of the same functions with about 3% as much money. Some things scale by land area or population, and other things are simply flat administrative burden, such as keeping the lights on in the sole state legislature building.

Any person wanting to profit from their own corruptibility would therefore not stay in NH, and would not go to Maine or Vermont, who have even less money to be stolen, but would instead go to Massachusetts, which is #11 on the "enough money to steal" candidate list. And take a ladle, to skim off some of the extra money sloshing around Boston.

This suggests that many of our largest (by money) states could be broken up as an anti-corruption measure, to divide the flows from tax revenues into expenditures into more channels, with less flowing through each. A corrupt person can only fish for dishonest opportunities in one metaphorical river at any one time. How corrupt would Illinois be, if Chicago-Naperville-Elgin-Gary were no longer attached to it? How would California differ if Los-Angeles-Long-Beach and San-Francisco-Oakland-San-Jose were no longer part of it? Would the effect be more pronounced in states where the current capital is not also the largest city: New York, California, Illinois, Texas, Florida?

Post reply on HN