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Comment by jdavis703 | Hacker News Reader

It sounds like they'll be keeping a sizable amount of staff in SF still. SF has a gross receipts tax on certain companies with HQ's in the city. As such auditors will want to ensure this isn't just a tax avoidance gimmick. By pairing this move with an acquisition Charles Schwab has a stronger defense against such an accusation.

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Tax avoidance "scam". Moving to Texas to reduce taxes, especially SF taxes which are basically useless to the payer [1], [2] is a "scam"? What's the legal framework preventing moves out of SF? Is it indentured slavery to the city council if you ever open an office in SF?

[1]: https://www.newsweek.com/san-francisco-district-attorney-pub...

[2]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2019/04/15/map...

The problem is perception. If a company seems to only move their headquarters in name only (IOW most of the staff still stays in SF), then that seems sketchy. If they make a clean separation and shutdown their SF presence, that doesn't appear as dodgy.

And these companies are not just moving to Texas. I live in Oakland, CA and many of these companies are relocating here. I don't care if they leave SF, but if they're cheating on their taxes, that's just not right.

How are they "cheating"? It appears like the city is the one cheating, refusing to enforce criminal law, which taxes are paying for. The city is cheating so much that they make some of the highest per capita tax revenue disappear without providing commensurate services

Maybe you can mention the statute relevant to HQs? I'm not aware of any

This was one of the most contentious ballot initiatives for 2018. The text called headquarters "adminstrative offices" FWIW: https://ballotpedia.org/San_Francisco,_California,_Propositi...

This measure was pretty well known. It was one of the most controversial local measures in 2018 (even gaining substantial regional coverage: I'm in Oakland not SF and heard a lot about it).

No one cares. Have you ever made a decision as a customer based on the company’s tax resident status?

It's not the only decision point, but I try to avoid companies that exhibit a pattern of scummy behavior such as Wal-Mart, Nestle or Uber. Further I'm not only a consumer. I'm also a potential (small time) investor and employee of these companies. The bar for acceptable behavior is even higher if I'm going to work or invest with them.

I see this (like a lot of things) as a negotiation tactic:

1. SF levies taxes on companies headquartered in SF. The message: “Pay us for the privilege of being in SF”.

2. SF companies move their headquarters but promise not to cut jobs in SF. The message: “We already provide lots of middle-class jobs in your city, providing tax revenues. It is not in your interest for those jobs to go away.”

When will the people of SF learn you cannot tax yourself to prosperity

When they move to Texas.

Where they will learn that Texas government pays for itself with oil and gas extraction taxes, which don't exist in California.

The Bay Area pays for itself with the tech industry.

No, the Bay Area rides on the coattails of tech. Severs can be anywhere and the second they decide Nevada (Cough Oracle) is cheaper, good by to all the money financing the impractical public policy. Humans are naturally selfish and greedy. That is fundamentally incompatible with any socialization of sufficient size

Texas and the oil industry are one and the same, fully intertwined. God help the poor soul that owns land where a private oil company wants to build a pipeline or plant. Said land will be instantly seized by the company under eminent domain laws and the owner will get a pittance in return.

If you're cool with that, then Texas is a great place for you to live.

While this article is about Louisiana, the same laws (and practices) exist in Texas: https://www.nola.com/news/environment/article_75b4ff32-0d87-...

Yeah. Sadly you never really own your house. Even after you payoff the mortgage, which many won't because they always refinance and consolidate loans. But even if you do end up paying off the mortgage, then you have to pay rent to the government, which who knows when your neighborhood will be torn down to build a highway or high speed rail project.

Then if you own the land, you don't even own the water, oil or whatever else might be under it. Remember abou a decade ago seeing something where a guy was disputing the county in Oregon over water rights, and they even illegally entered his property with no warrants or anythings.

The City & County of SF has the seventh highest median income of all U.S. counties [0]. The GDP of the Bay Area ranks ahead of all but 16 countries [1]. If taxes are correlated with prosperity it'd seem as though SF had found a way to tax itself to prosperity. (Of course in reality economics and tax policy are far more complicated than this).

0: https://bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/lapi/lapi_newsrelease.... 1: https://web.archive.org/web/20171208145551/https://www.bea.g...

Your argument assumes the correlation, but you're arguing that the causation exists without even establishing the correlation.

You can’t ride on the coattails of FANGO (Oracle) forever. For every person doing well you have just as many doing drugs in a tent on the streets below multimillion dollar 2 bedroom lofts

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