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Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

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Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#271

Post by refurb »

thebradbain wrote: post #179
asdff wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property taxes are higher than California, right? I can't find the source handy at the moment, but I've heard that a house in Austin that looks like a couple hundred grand cheaper than an equivalent house in California for the listing isn't actually any cheaper when you factor in the increased taxes and potentially other costs I'm not aware of.

Property taxes are _much_ higher in Texas than California, in fact Texas has one of the highest property taxes in the nation (because there's no income tax, and TX still needs to fund itself somehow; TX also has one of the highest sales taxes for this reason, too). You pay the same on property taxes for a $400k house in Texas as a $1M house in California. Not only that, CA has Prop 13: for better or worse, your prope…

Good luck finding a million dollar house in the Bay Area.

And TX has a sales tax of 6.25%, while SF is 9.25%.

And no state income tax in TX.

It’s not even close.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#272

Post by paxys »

asdff wrote: post #201

Anyone have a running list of enormously rich people moving from California to Texas to avoid being taxed on a windfall and ostensibly justifying it with insert reason here ? So far I have Joe Rogan with his spotify deal and now Musk with some of his options coming up for payday.

Both will have to pay CA taxes regardless. The California tax board does not mess around. Rich people are generally more afraid of them than the IRS (which has become toothless in recent years).

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#273

Post by chipotle_coyote »

Apocryphon wrote: post #151
m0zg wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've looked at properties in Austin area a few months back. It's more affordable than CA, but it's still way out of reach of most non-HQ staff that Tesla employs. I've read the stat that property values have gone up 43% due to exodus from locked down blue states over the course of just the past year. Couple this with Texas' higher than average property tax rate (_especially_ in Austin area) and you've got some pretty…

> FWIW, I'm looking at FL now instead. Miami? Or joining the much more quiet Jacksonville or Tampa Bay exodus that this dubious survey based entirely on LinkedIn data claims: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-01/austin-is...

As someone who used to live in Tampa Bay—and may have to move back for family reasons next year—I find that a little dubious as well. :) Although to be fair, Tampa and St. Petersburg both got measurably more interesting in the last decade than they were when I left in 2002.

Never lived in Jacksonville, but I’ve visited it and have a friend who used to live there. Jacksonville is to Florida what Fresno is to California: bigger than you think, probably perfectly pleasant, utterly non-descript. :)

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#274

Post by skissane »

darawk wrote: post #189
asdff wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem for musk in this case being his tax burden, since he is otherwise entirely insulated from every other issue affecting most californians.

His tax situation really has nothing to do with it. If he sells his Tesla shares, he's still going to owe CA tax. But he never has to sell any Tesla shares, he can just buy hedges against them and take out loans. If you have sufficient capital assets, you never have to actual earn any "income" or generate any "capital gains" if you don't want to.

> But he never has to sell any Tesla shares, he can just buy hedges against them and take out loans

So he takes out a $1 billion loan, and he offers $1 billion in stock as a security, and then also buys a futures contract (or a put option) on his $1 billion of stock to lock in the current price, so if the stock goes down in value over the life of the loan, the lender doesn't lose their security? And then when the loan falls due, he refinances – get a new loan using the same mechanism, and use it to repay the existing one? And he doesn't owe capital gains tax on the stock he uses as security, because he doesn't actually sell it?

I suppose though, you can't just go on refinancing forever. One day he will die, and then it will have to come out of his estate, and I guess his estate may pay the capital gains tax then? So it is really delaying paying tax, rather than getting out of it forever?

Unless, I suppose, he leaves the stock to a trust in his will, and transfers the loan to the trust too, and then the trust can continue this process long after he is gone? And maybe, if it is a charitable trust, even use some charitable tax exemption to get out of paying the tax permanently?

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#275

Post by boringg »

scoofy wrote: post #265
seabrookmx wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even just the bay area but the whole coast. Look at prices in Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, or out east. They all easily top Austin. I think it's a good thing. Austin has a budding tech scene. Hopefully the political shitstorm there blows over so people actually want to live there.

>budding Literally Dell Computers is from Austin.

Has Dell done anything innovative since the 90s? It repackaged computer hardware in a cheap package filled to the brim with bloatware.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#276

Post by jasondigitized »

dane-pgp wrote: post #137
nunez wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corp taxes low, cost of living low (for now), HEAPS of open space (important for Tesla), UT Austin's compsci program (which is ranked) provides a good pipeline, engineers from the Bay are moving to Austin at an increasingly high rate, and demographics are shifting more progressive. I think the writing is on the wall for tech in CA honestly

If the demographics of Texas is really shifting more progressive, then the writing could also be on the wall for Republican presidential campaigns. Perhaps at that point the party will suddenly find itself again embracing the wisdom of the proposed Lodge-Gossett constitutional amendment, which got as far as approval by a super majority in the US Senate in 1950. https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/analysis-fractional-…

Republicans are doing everything they can to prolong the demographic tidal wave coming their way in the next 20 years. Texas will be blue eventually.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#277

Post by 8note »

posguy wrote: post #193
pvarangot wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talked to several Tesla and former Tesla folks that will probably relocate because of this, and the say is that since Austin in less NIMBY than the Bay Area new housing will get built and prices will go down. It's a more complex bet than just "we move there because houses are affordable now".

Apple took this bet years ago, it has not panned out. Austin's housing and rental prices just keep increasing year after year.

I'd assume that apple leadership buys all the land cheap and sells it for a heft profit to the peons.

Then, they can rinse and repeat at a new location.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#278

Post by cletus »

Here's another point to consider: the Trump tax "cuts" in 2017 were in fact a giant middle finger to college-educated workers in coastal blue states, in three major ways:

1. The $200-500k Federal tax bracket actually went up;

2. Loss of the SALT deduction. There are 9 states without state income tax. Most of them are red (Washington is a notable exception). This disproportionately hits blue states; and

3. Reducing the cap for the mortgage deduction, which again only affects expensive states.

We have a hung Senate, essentially. A better description is to say that it is controlled by Charles Koch, who owns Joe Machin and the Republican Party.

So these tax hikes on blue states haven't been rolled back under Biden because of Charles Koch, basically. In the proposed bill, the SALT deduction isn't getting reinstituted, the mortgage cap is the same and the corporate tax cuts (you know, the ones that will trickle down) are only getting partially rolled back.

And even that might not pass.

But what this means is that there is now a huge financial incentive for workers in California and New York in particular to move south. Hell, it was a significant factor in me moving from NYC to Florida, as an example.

But I wonder if the unintended consequence of McConnell's and Trump's giant middle finger to the blue states could be the migration of left-leaning voters to Texas, Florida and even Tennessee and Georgia (GA has a state income tax but Atlanta is cheap compared to CA/NY).

Perhaps Tesla's move is part of that trend.

It would be entertaining, to say the least, if this hastened the political extinction of the party of Trump. The trends were such that Texas is likely to be a battleground state in ~10 years as it is.

I can but hope.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#279

Post by pvarangot »

handmodel wrote: post #254
etchalon wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why they think Austin is less NIMBY. That hasn't been my experience.

It may be as NIMBY in some ways but the effects haven't kicked in yet (and probably won't given size, competition, and property tax laws). Look at the options available for a family making 80k in these two cities. They aren't even the same magnitude. https://www.trulia.com/TX/Austin/ https://www.trulia.com/CA/Palo_Alto/ Texas also doesnt have prop 13 so it is unlikely to ever reach the levels of a California city

That comparison is ridiculous, have you been to Palo Alto? It's a mansion neighborhood like Atherton. A better comparison would be with San Jose or San Mateo that are like, normal cities. Still way more expensive than Austin but it's nowhere near the price of Palo Alto or Atherton.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#280

Post by boringg »

seabrookmx wrote: post #256
boringg wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean are you seriously comparing affordability of Austin to the bay area? My sense is that you have only lived in Austin and thus don't know how squeezed things are in the bay area. Not trying to be rude but just trying to point out how much more affordable Austin is relative to the bay area.

Not even just the bay area but the whole coast. Look at prices in Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, or out east. They all easily top Austin. I think it's a good thing. Austin has a budding tech scene. Hopefully the political shitstorm there blows over so people actually want to live there.

My bad, didn't meant to leave the rest of the coastline out.

And yes, hopefully these changes will turn Texas purple unless they continue to gerrymander the ish out of the whole state.

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