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I'd be a bit more sympathetic to Silicon Valley companies if they didn't send so much of their profits overseas to avoid paying the same taxes meatspace companies have a harder time avoiding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

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I read the "no one can say that Silicon Valley is not doing its part" and was strongly reminded of Google's 2.4% overseas rate http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-sho.... Or Twitter's massive breaks to locate in SF. I'm not blaming them or anything, I just think portraying them as victims of high taxes and then lamenting about state and federal budget issues is so wildly hypocritical and misguided.

(edit: meant as a reply to the comment above by rayiner, which I agree with, incase it's not clear)

No one likes to pay more in taxes. But let's not confuse our whining and bellyaching for sound economic arguments. As one could expect, there's been such a flurry of these pieces with essentially the same argument, only different levels of histrionics. "The negative effects of higher taxes on investment growth are exponential.", etc

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