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

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

#121

Post by skh »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #119
skh wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

OK. I guess don't change the framing of taxation from Right vs. Left to framing the issue to one of determining the optimal way to fund what society needs/wants.

I doubt you can large numbers of the Left saying what you claim. Specifically that the reason for wanting to increase taxes is to get rid of wealth inequality. I have heard people say things to the effect that beyond a certain point the wealthy can afford to pay more taxes in order to fund some programs. These things are nuanced and it's not helpful to reduce everything to a slogan.

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

#122

Post by sdinsn »

influx wrote: post #35
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.

Likewise here in Washington state. All the Californians are fleeing here and implementing the exact same polices that drove them to leave. Odd.

> and implementing the exact same polices that drove them to leave

Except they aren't.

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

#123

Post by sdinsn »

scottlocklin wrote: post #9
outside1234 wrote: post #2

Good luck with that - if you have a California license plates, drivers license, or they can prove you show up pretty frequently to a California located job - you are going to get caught doing this and fined extensively. Also, WTF: You took advantage of all of the infrastructure of a state to get rich and now you don't want to contribute back? Shame on you and may karma come around for you.

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.

> Easily the most corrupt state I've ever seen

Have you only seen California?

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

#124

Post by sdinsn »

AlexandrB wrote: post #3

> The state of California treats capital gains just like any other income, levying a 13.3 percent state tax on sales of stock. For someone sitting on tens of millions of dollars in private stock — life-changing money for some — it’s not a small concern. Yes, it literally is! It's 13% - that's about the same as sales tax in many places and nowhere near AOC's 70% tax. This is greed, plain and simple. 99% of the world w…

> near AOC's 70% tax

...For the highest tax bracket.

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

#125

Post by yurymik »

cpursley wrote: post #62
pliny wrote: post #16

>On the other hand, Silicon Valley money is made in California and draws on California services. Employees commute to work on taxpayer-funded roads and many studied at taxpayer-funded schools. And one extreme example: When a gunman shot four people on the campus of YouTube last spring, it was San Bruno police that responded to the scene. This argument is scale invariant, you could say that any level of taxation justi…

> 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…

> Russia with a 13% flat tax

That's a common misconception. Yes, personal tax rate is 13%, but your employer will have to pay for health insurance (5.1), social services (2.9), and pension fund (22). Overall, you get closer to 43% flat tax rate.

The big difference is - you never see these moneys in the first place. Your paycheck is a net pay, all deducts are applied by the accounting department and only 13% rate is widely advertised as one the lowest in the world.

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

#126

Post by logfromblammo »

castlecrasher2 wrote: post #117
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…

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.

I don't think corruption can be measured by arrests, as the mechanisms to arrest the corrupt are themselves corruptible. Nor do I think that per-capita is the correct way to compare jurisdictions of dissimilar sizes. With corruption, it is not the number of residents that matters, but the organization of the independently corruptible units of government, and the amounts of money that can be quietly sucked out of them.

The desired metric--that we want to approximate from the more easily obtainable data--is corruption profits per corruptible individual. Each corruptible individual has an incentive to move to places where that metric is higher, thus performing sleazebag arbitrage between those areas where corruption is endemic.

Are the examples you cited outliers, with explainable reasons for poorly fitting the trend?

Could it be that they are all territories, where crimes of corruption by officials at lower levels in the administrative hierarchy would be investigated by the federal Dept. of Justice from the start, without any states' attorneys-general getting a crack at them first or asking the feds for assistance or joint prosecution? If you separate out DC and the island territories, does the remainder of the set hold up?

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

#127

Post by dragonwriter »

cpursley wrote: post #62
pliny wrote: post #16

>On the other hand, Silicon Valley money is made in California and draws on California services. Employees commute to work on taxpayer-funded roads and many studied at taxpayer-funded schools. And one extreme example: When a gunman shot four people on the campus of YouTube last spring, it was San Bruno police that responded to the scene. This argument is scale invariant, you could say that any level of taxation justi…

> 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…

> How is it that other nations/jurisdictions can have lower taxes than the USA

The US has substantially lower tax burden (share of GDP in taxes) than the OECD average, about 1/4 of GDP collared to about 1/3 as the OECD average.

> Russia with a 13% flat tax

Russia has a 13% flat income tax, but also has a national VAT (with different rates, not sure what the overall average is), and a social insurance tax that is regressive and has a rate of 26% up to about 3/4 of the median income.

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

#128

Post by dragonwriter »

pliny wrote: post #16

>On the other hand, Silicon Valley money is made in California and draws on California services. Employees commute to work on taxpayer-funded roads and many studied at taxpayer-funded schools. And one extreme example: When a gunman shot four people on the campus of YouTube last spring, it was San Bruno police that responded to the scene. This argument is scale invariant, you could say that any level of taxation justi…

> so it must also depend on the question of how other states manage to do the same work the California Government does (having schools, roads and police) with much lower rates of income and sales tax and a much less smaller tax base.

(1) They don't do the work the CA government does, which is why CA has a larger tax base.

(2) They have higher property taxes; California has the third highest median home price of the 50 states plus DC, yet the 10th lowest tax bill on median priced home of the same 51 jurisdictions.

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

#129

Post by cpursley »

yurymik wrote: post #125
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…

> Russia with a 13% flat tax That's a common misconception. Yes, personal tax rate is 13%, but your employer will have to pay for health insurance (5.1), social services (2.9), and pension fund (22). Overall, you get closer to 43% flat tax rate. The big difference is - you never see these moneys in the first place. Your paycheck is a net pay, all deducts are applied by the accounting department and only 13% rate is w…

Interesting, thanks for pointing this out.

I have been considering becoming a Russian resident (and eventually citizen ~ yes, crazy). Do you know if self-employed people are liable for the other taxes you mentioned?

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

#130

Post by EpicEng »

skh wrote: post #115
EpicEng wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

ok I misunderstood what you meant by "where [you earn it]". Still though, things get more complicated when you have residence in state A and spend a significant portion of your time working in state B. You're paying taxes which go to other people, regardless of whether or not you benefit partially. My kids don't get better schools, my family doesn't get better healthcare, etc.
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