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Comment by bitshaker | Hacker News Reader

For anyone looking to be in Puerto Rico, the massive tax incentives help as well.

US Virgin Islands are similar as well.

Definitely real challenges though... these places are poor tropical backwaters. It's a shame as it's beautiful and full of potential.

Poor backwater compared to what? Puerto Rico has a GDP per capita between Spain and Italy.

And a Gini coefficient (.531 as of 2011) between Guatemala (.530) and Colombia (.535). Italy and Spain are at .319 and .359 respectively. The US as a whole is .475.

It's an inequality coefficient, not any kind of measure of how "nice" a country is for someone living there.

Countries with a high Gini, tend to segregate more heavily than those who don't, which for the typical 'rich' software developer means that they'll live in a trendy area and know to avoid the 'ghetto'.

For example, Miami has a high gini at ~0.6 to 0.7 which gives you the palaces overlooking shacks effect of Miami Beach.

High gini also correlates with extreme economic growth, where the benefits fall onto a small group (e.g. software developers), and a reversion to the mean hasn't yet taken place.

> they'll live in a trendy area and know to avoid the 'ghetto'

cough cough the Bay Area. Seriously, though, the Santa Clara County metropolitan statistical area clocks in at 0.45 while New York is 0.60 [1].

[1] https://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acsbr10-18.pdf

County statistics are misleading here. Santa Clara County is a big place (almost the size of Long Island) with lots of municipalities. New York County is just 1 of 5 counties that encompass New York City!

If you look at Brooklyn (Kings County), the number is 0.499, Queens County the number is 0.433.

According to another site, the citywide number was 0.547 in 2013. ( https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/inequality-new-york-city-we... )

rayiner definitely meant per capita GDP. Yes people calling the place a poor backwater have American bias for sure.

St. Croix USVI would be a great place to start a startup. It's on the east coast time zone, and infrastructure is good enough, real estate is cheap (for the Caribbean). There are ample outdoor activities (swimming, snorkeling/diving, kayaking, kitesurfing, fishing, sailing, golf, tennis, yoga, etc).

The incentives of the USVI EDC Program* are quite significant. It's one of the only legal loopholes for US citizens to avoid most income taxes. The main catch is, you have to hire 10 people, including 8 locals (this can include yourself):

  - 90% reduction in corporate income tax

  - 90% reduction in personal income tax

  - 100% exemption on gross receipt tax

  - 100% exemption on business property tax

  - 100% exemption on excise tax payments

  - Reduction in the customs duty from the standard 6% to 1%

  - Tax reduction on royalty income from software developed in the USVI and sold to non-US customers

  - Availability of rental space at below market rates in the St. Croix and St. Thomas Industrial Parks

* https://www.usvieda.org/incentives/edc-program

Do you know of any startups or tech companies in the USVI? I'm located in St. Thomas and there are financial companies that take advantage of edc I haven't heard of any startups or techs.

Tech scene seems kind of dead here.

There's a small handful. Here's one: http://nearix.com/

How can I get in touch with you? Maybe we can connect next time I'm down that way.

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