They Got Rich Off Uber and Lyft. Then They Moved to Low-Tax States.

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/technology/uber-lyft-low-tax-millennials.html

They Got Rich Off Uber and Lyft. Then They Moved to Low-Tax States.
By Kate Conger
May 9, 2019

AUSTIN, Tex. — Brian McMullen’s only plan on a Thursday afternoon in March was to watch as many college basketball games as possible. Parked inside his neighborhood bar and grill and eating brunch tacos, he followed one game on the restaurant’s TV screen while another streamed on his iPhone.

As the games played out, Mr. McMullen talked about his new life in Austin, Tex., where he had moved last October from San Francisco. Some of his biggest activities since then: reading the Harry Potter series for the first time and spending more than 100 hours completing “Dragon Quest,” a role-playing video game. He was also working out a lot, he said, and teaching himself a coding language to create his own games.

For his medium-term goals, Mr. McMullen said, he and his new wife had been planning to honeymoon in Japan for a month. But they decided to cut the trip short to fly to San Francisco to meet friends for the opening night of “Avengers: Endgame” in April, at one point discussing whether to rent out an entire showing. (They did not.)

“I’m currently taking time off for myself,” he said.

Mr. McMullen, 33, is part of an exclusive club: the semiretired tech millennial who left California after getting rich. Like many in this group, he is a newly minted multimillionaire who became wealthy by working for high-profile San Francisco start-ups like Uber and Lyft, which are now about to go or have just gone public. Once their wealth was assured, these tech workers quit the companies and fled California, which has the nation’s highest state income tax, at more than 13 percent, to reside in lower-tax states like Texas and Florida, where there is no personal state income tax.

[Moostache]

1. Shocking...bet he loves "Atlas Shrugged" too...

I have no use for people who are in the "I-got-mine-fuck-everyone-else" bucket.

Maybe I am wrong about this guy, but the archetype in general annoys the piss out of me. People with disproportionate rewards relative to their true value to humanity is the primary reason the entire population is teetering on the brink of extinction without even realizing it yet.

[dhill926]

2. What you said...

[brush]

3. Very well put. I'd put Zuckerberg, Sandberg and Bezos in that category.

Anyone else care to add some names besides that most obvious orange thang in the WH?

[SunSeeker]

4. McMullen sounds like a self-centered little douchebag.

God forbid he should give back to the state that made him rich.

[trev]

5. Hm....

In my career, my state taxes were always derived from the state in which the company paying me resided. So how does these guys' moving to another state nullify their obligation to pay California?

[forthemiddle]

7. No

Last edited Sun May 12, 2019, 05:38 PM - Edit history (1)

It’s always in the State in which you reside, and in which the work is physically done.
I have worked remotely for a company based in Ohio for almost 20 years. In that time I have lived in Wisconsin and now Indiana. I have never paid taxes to Ohio.

[trev]

8. My brother lives in Washington

and works in Oregon. He pays Oregon taxes.

[MosheFeingold]

10. I am guessing

But he probably made SOME money in CA, but exited to TX before his big pay day when he sold his ownership.

The income occurred whilst a resident of TX; ergo nothing owed to CA.

These people are not stupid, you know. Of course they game the system.

[hack89]

11. Because they have no income coming from California

California can't tax their wealth or the income from their wealth if they don't live in California.

[MosheFeingold]

9. Walter Wriston

"Capital goes where it is welcome and stays where it is well treated."

Wriston was a putz, but he stated an economic reality.

[MicaelS]

12. Given the high costs in SF....

There is no way in hell I would live there. I do not care how much money I had. Given that Austin is another high tech hotspot, it makes sense to move there.

The cost of living in Texas is much lower for everyone. That is why so many are fleeing California for Texas.