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At a certain point though, it becomes cheaper to just pay the wealth tax than to move your hundred-billion-dollar company headquarters from state to state to st

At a certain point though, it becomes cheaper to just pay the wealth tax than to move your hundred-billion-dollar company headquarters from state to state to state as more states adopt this policy.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
I worked at a company that relocated their official headquarters twice in a span of a few years. From an employee perspective, nothing really changed. We already had offices in multiple states and countries, and we already routinely worked remotely across offices. The location of the company's headquarters was more of an abstract notion. Moving it is trivial. The only real exception is when bills try to tax anyone who spends a certain number of days in a state. California had a proposal to tax anyone who spent more than 60 days per year in California. The end result wouldn't be an increase in tax revenue. Instead, wealthy people would simply avoid traveling to California any more than absolutely necessary.
- ironmagma 6y ago
  There is nothing particularly different about California’s desires from a taxation perspective. Any other state would eventually make the same decision. The bottom line is if a state is housing a 12-figure individual or company and sustaining the related damage associated with social wealth disparity as a result, they will want to recoup the damages in the form of taxes. These taxes are nothing but a band-aid over our culture of private wealth. If we didn’t have the latter, we wouldn’t need the former.
emteycz 6y ago
Or you make the HQ virtual/remote and move the address on a whim, perhaps even automatically several times per month. Or you move it completely out of the country. I don't believe all states are so anti-business.
- ironmagma 6y ago
  Good luck doing that with Amazon. You have to have a physical headquarters somewhere, and moving it out of the country has its own costs such as import taxes. I don't know why everyone is so insistent that moving is the only possible result of laws like this. Fortunately taxes do work, or we wouldn't have anything resembling the infrastructure we have in modern Western society. Taxes are a technology like any other.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    Taxes work, too much taxes don't. This is getting into the "too much" territory. I'm very sure that any country a billionaire like this would choose would not have import taxes, or that exception could be made for the privilege of having him.
    - ironmagma 6y ago
      2 billion is 1% of Jeff Bezos’ net worth. Most Americans pay far larger a percentage of that each year in taxes.
  - mtmail 6y ago
    Amazon in Europe moved their headquarters to another country (Luxembourg) to get a special tax deal. Took 2 years but the tax benefit was worth it. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-amazon-taxavoidance-idUSKCN1C913S https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-amazon-taxavoidance-id... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/18/revealed-project-goldcrest-amazon-avoid-huge-sums-tax https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/18/revealed-...
polka_haunts_us 6y ago
It isn't a corporation tax, it's a personal wealth tax on non-tangible financial assets. He doesn't need to move his HQ, just himself. I'm pretty sure he can find a U-Haul for under 2 billion dollars, and according to the article, the State of Washington apparently believes he, or some others like him, will.
- ironmagma 6y ago
  If you want to build your multi billion dollar company, you should probably be in the state it’s based in for a significant chunk of the year. He and other hundred-billionaires usually have a reason for living where they live instead of being, say, based on a yacht in the Atlantic.

At a certain point though, it becomes cheaper to just pay the wealth tax than to move your hundred-billion-dollar company headquarters from state to state to state as more states adopt this policy.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

I worked at a company that relocated their official headquarters twice in a span of a few years. From an employee perspective, nothing really changed. We already had offices in multiple states and countries, and we already routinely worked remotely across offices. The location of the company's headquarters was more of an abstract notion. Moving it is trivial. The only real exception is when bills try to tax anyone who spends a certain number of days in a state. California had a proposal to tax anyone who spent more than 60 days per year in California. The end result wouldn't be an increase in tax revenue. Instead, wealthy people would simply avoid traveling to California any more than absolutely necessary.

ironmagma 6y ago
There is nothing particularly different about California’s desires from a taxation perspective. Any other state would eventually make the same decision. The bottom line is if a state is housing a 12-figure individual or company and sustaining the related damage associated with social wealth disparity as a result, they will want to recoup the damages in the form of taxes. These taxes are nothing but a band-aid over our culture of private wealth. If we didn’t have the latter, we wouldn’t need the former.

emteycz 6y ago

Or you make the HQ virtual/remote and move the address on a whim, perhaps even automatically several times per month. Or you move it completely out of the country. I don't believe all states are so anti-business.

ironmagma 6y ago
Good luck doing that with Amazon. You have to have a physical headquarters somewhere, and moving it out of the country has its own costs such as import taxes. I don't know why everyone is so insistent that moving is the only possible result of laws like this. Fortunately taxes do work, or we wouldn't have anything resembling the infrastructure we have in modern Western society. Taxes are a technology like any other.
- emteycz 6y ago
  Taxes work, too much taxes don't. This is getting into the "too much" territory. I'm very sure that any country a billionaire like this would choose would not have import taxes, or that exception could be made for the privilege of having him.
  - ironmagma 6y ago
    2 billion is 1% of Jeff Bezos’ net worth. Most Americans pay far larger a percentage of that each year in taxes.
- mtmail 6y ago
  Amazon in Europe moved their headquarters to another country (Luxembourg) to get a special tax deal. Took 2 years but the tax benefit was worth it. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-amazon-taxavoidance-idUSKCN1C913S https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-amazon-taxavoidance-id... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/18/revealed-project-goldcrest-amazon-avoid-huge-sums-tax https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/18/revealed-...

polka_haunts_us 6y ago

It isn't a corporation tax, it's a personal wealth tax on non-tangible financial assets. He doesn't need to move his HQ, just himself. I'm pretty sure he can find a U-Haul for under 2 billion dollars, and according to the article, the State of Washington apparently believes he, or some others like him, will.

ironmagma 6y ago
If you want to build your multi billion dollar company, you should probably be in the state it’s based in for a significant chunk of the year. He and other hundred-billionaires usually have a reason for living where they live instead of being, say, based on a yacht in the Atlantic.