I definitely agree with you that there are better states than California, but I recently moved my online company from California to Texas and discovered a reall

I definitely agree with you that there are better states than California, but I recently moved my online company from California to Texas and discovered a really nasty surprise: Texas considers web hosting, server rental, SaaS, etc. to be services subject to sales tax [1]. Washington actually does as well, since you mentioned it. This will complicate your life in two ways: First, your internet company now has to enumerate subscribers in the same state as you and charge them sales tax. Your competitors, located in friendlier territories, can undercut you by not having to do this. Second, any payments you make to a SaaS/hosting vendor are now subject to use tax. Do you pay AWS for hosting every month? Get ready to cough up ~6% of that for Texas' treasury. If you're running the kind of business where your hosting bill will grow proportionally to your revenue, this amounts to a tax on revenue. In my case, it wildly exceeds anything California ever charged me in income tax. [1] https://blog.taxjar.com/saas-sales-tax/ https://blog.taxjar.com/saas-sales-tax/