“You can’t take it with you” is as true about death as it is about taxes.
If I’ve got a $5M home in Beacon Hill and I decide to flee to Texas because the taxes are cheaper, who the fuck am I going to sell it to? Another guy with $5M in his pocket? Or am I just going to eat a seven figure loss to save $10k/year on income taxes?
What if I’ve got a $50M tower block in Boston’s downtown? Or a $500M corporate HQ? How about a $5B warehousing district in Boston Harbor? You think I’m going to just pick that shit up and move it to Louisiana?
You discount the most important bit: laborer availability, service availability and quality of life. Also productivity.
You cannot just move when you require a large amount of people and services.
There’s no shortage of people living in the American southwest. And quite a few of them are cheap to hire, even at a professional level.
But there’s also a bunch of competing American billionaires who have bought up all the real estate and political base of these remote locations. The CEO of Fidelity can’t just pick up from Boston and move to San Antonio, because her wealth and authority is predicated on her influence in Boston. Even if she were to transplant every one of her staffers down south (and Exxon hemorrhaged thousands of staffers when they tried this back in the 1980s), she still won’t have the office space or the political connections or the business relationships that make Fidelity an bedrock institution up north. FFS, half the reason Fidelity is up there is the proximity to Wall Street. Texas has been trying to lure stock brokerages down south for decades without success.
But it’s like trying to pick up a 3000 year old Redwood from California and drag it to Florida. You’ve got roots, bro. They don’t come free easily or without a price. And there’s a reason competing businesses aren’t already down there. The climate is all wrong.
“You can’t take it with you” is as true about death as it is about taxes.
If I’ve got a $5M home in Beacon Hill and I decide to flee to Texas because the taxes are cheaper, who the fuck am I going to sell it to? Another guy with $5M in his pocket? Or am I just going to eat a seven figure loss to save $10k/year on income taxes?
What if I’ve got a $50M tower block in Boston’s downtown? Or a $500M corporate HQ? How about a $5B warehousing district in Boston Harbor? You think I’m going to just pick that shit up and move it to Louisiana?
You discount the most important bit: laborer availability, service availability and quality of life. Also productivity. You cannot just move when you require a large amount of people and services.
There’s no shortage of people living in the American southwest. And quite a few of them are cheap to hire, even at a professional level.
But there’s also a bunch of competing American billionaires who have bought up all the real estate and political base of these remote locations. The CEO of Fidelity can’t just pick up from Boston and move to San Antonio, because her wealth and authority is predicated on her influence in Boston. Even if she were to transplant every one of her staffers down south (and Exxon hemorrhaged thousands of staffers when they tried this back in the 1980s), she still won’t have the office space or the political connections or the business relationships that make Fidelity an bedrock institution up north. FFS, half the reason Fidelity is up there is the proximity to Wall Street. Texas has been trying to lure stock brokerages down south for decades without success.
But it’s like trying to pick up a 3000 year old Redwood from California and drag it to Florida. You’ve got roots, bro. They don’t come free easily or without a price. And there’s a reason competing businesses aren’t already down there. The climate is all wrong.
they aren’t going to flee to texas over taxes because texas has a higher taxes (overall, not just income)