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"Tim asked me how things were going at TechCrunch. I told him I was exhausted after five years but that a recent move to Seattle made it easier to balance my li

• cletus 16y ago
  You make a good point. It also gives credence to Calacanis' allegations that Arrington blew up TC50 to screw him out of a payout.
• jackowayed 16y ago
  Could CA do anything to him even if he came right out and said, "I moved so I could avoid California taxes"? There's nothing illegal about that.
  • bbatsell 16y ago
    Yes. They would re-classify him as a permanent California resident with a temporary residence in WA, which would make him subject to CA franchise tax. Not paying his taxes would then be illegal.
    • count 16y ago
      But if he's no longer living in California, and has a WA address, drivers license, etc. then how can California do anything?
      • jseliger 16y ago
        then how can California do anything? There are probably rules about how long you need to be there to establish residency. And the franchise tax board is notoriously nasty. I remember reading an article about how they go after athletes who play games in CA (read: all of them). So if you're a basketball player and you play the Lakers, if you earn $200,000 that night, CA wants $20,000, even if that's the only thing you've done in the state.
        • jtbigwoo 16y ago
          This is true everywhere, not just in California. All forty-one states with a personal income tax have laws on the books to collect taxes from non-residents who work in their state. If you're affiliated with a pro team (including players, coaches, trainers, etc.), you can expect to file your taxes about a dozen states (plus Canada.) If you're a musician or other entertainer (circus clown, for example) on a huge tour, you could conceivably file 41 state returns plus a few for other countries.
          • protomyth 16y ago
            Technically, MN and ND have a reciprocity agreement where residents of one state that work in the other can pay tax in the state they are residents of and not the state they are earning money from. It is generally there because of the Grand Forks / East Grand Forks and Fargo / Moorhead areas crossing states.
      • _delirium 16y ago
        It partly depends on just how legit he's been about the move. My guess is that the amount of time he's spent in CA since he "moved" to WA a few months ago will turn out to be suspiciously high for a non-California resident. Bin 38, if I recall, is not located in WA, and he seems to have just happened to be in that area a few weeks ago, several months after he "moved" to WA. Perhaps he flew out specifically for the occasion and really is not usually around. But I wouldn't be surprised if he still lives/works primarily in California, and has a sham WA residency.
• jseliger 16y ago
  Translation: Dear California FTB, my move had absolutely nothing to do with tax avoidance on a cash windfall and I really am a Washington resident. I had NO idea we were being acquired when I made the move 4 months ago... I'm as surprised as you are. Seriously. For reals. This is actually more legitimate than it sounds. My family's business (www.seliger.com) does grant writing, and my parents really wanted to move to L.A. from Seattle. But they moved to Tucson (where I'm in grad school) instead, because of the cost of housing and the tax situation. Their thinking informed this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1711350 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1711350 . WA State is contemplating an income tax, which to me sounds like suicide and idiocy because Seattle's biggest advantage over CA is not having an income tax. In any event, none of my family will step foot in CA for business because of the franchise tax board. But a lot of our clients are there, so every other year or so we'll get a nastygram from them, which requires that we reply and say, "We have no physical presence there, so fuck off."