Nevada and Arizona Lure Tax-Hit Businesses from California

Nevada and Arizona are trying to capitalize on California's latest ballot measures by attempting to lure tax-burdened companies out of the golden state.

According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, the Las Vegas Regional Economic Development Council (LVREDC) plans to launch a campaign to attract businesses across state lines.  Tom Skancke, CEO of the LVREDC, told the paper that he "welcomed all California businesses" and that his development staff would be reaching out to their contacts in California in the new year.

Arizona business leaders have made a more ambitious play for businesses fleeing tax hikes. The Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC) launched a program to fly 100 Californian chief executives to Arizona for a tour of what the Grand Canyon state has to offer. Speaking to the L.A. Times, Barry Broome, President of the GPEC project, questioned the continuing viability of businesses in California

"If I were running a company in California, I would have a deep internal debate about the direction of the state. You just have an environment in California that isn't good news for people who build and run companies."

The program has extended its initial ambitions looking to target 100 high-tech companies with 200 or more employees; double it's initial plans of 50. So far 11 CEOs have committed to meeting with the GPEC. Gil Duran, a spokesman for Governor Jerry Brown (D-Calif.), dismissed the program in an email saying; "Anybody who tries to convince you to leave the best and richest state for some parched desert outpost should be regarded with extreme suspicion. Scam alert!"

The number of businesses leaving California this year is said to be on track with last year's figure of an estimated 254. However, with the increase in statewide sales tax (from 7.25 percent to 7.5 percent) brought in by Proposition 30, a boost in income tax rates for the next seven years on incomes over $250,000, the newly implemented cap-and-trade program and an elimination of many business tax loopholes by Proposition 39 more and more companies may be persuaded to move states. 

Comments

[WTF]

How long before states like California start imposing exit taxes on fleeing businesses?

[Cdr Lytton]

Those fruit inspection stations could be repurposed.

[pmains]

What they need is a border fence. Maybe they could have two of them, 10 feet tall with barbed wire and overhead drones monitoring monocled plutocrats trying to flee.

[Bobarian]

Don't tell anybody, but this is actually the first step in my Lex Luthor real estate plan.

My next step is to nuke the San Andreas fault and sink Gamorrah into the sea.

But I've said too much already.

M'WAH-HAH-HA!!

[Brandybuck]

There would be an underground railroad underneath Doris...

[Delroy]

Rachel, what a moran!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[GW]

Best and richest state? Since when did asshole deep in debt = rich?

[Emmerson Biggins]

Since Donald Trump?

[wareagle]

how many of the same folks now voting with their feet used to vote at the ballot box. I suppose the light coming later is better than it never coming on. The task now for places like AZ and NV is to make sure newcomers don't try to turn their new homes into the places they left.

[Ken Shultz]

Almost 40% of Californians voted for Romney.

If that's indicative of the general thinking in the state at large, then it suggests that there are an awful lot of people in California who don't think much of the Democrats in Sacramento.

Californians are not a monolithic block. It's just that the Republicans bet big on anti-immigration back when Pete Wilson was governor, and that alienated a huge chunk of the electorate. It came back and bit them in the ass.

Add in perceptions about how people view Republicans generally based on stupid shit Republicans in the South and elsewhere say about gay marriage, etc., and there's a huge chunk of swing voters who wouldn't vote for Republicans now any sooner than you'd vote for Al Qaeda.

It's not that different from the nation at large. Certainly, the whole country doesn't deserve to suffer just because so many swing voters stupidly voted for Democrats in the last election.

[califernian]

Please. We just had a republican governor remember? In california, the TEAMS argue over "bigger" and "even bigger" government.

[Ken Shultz]

Yeah, we had a Republican governor, and the only one we could get elected was himself an immigrant.

[Adam330]

NV continues to elect Harry Reid to the Senate. I'm skeptical that it is some kind of business-friendly place.

[Belgian]

He only won last time because Sharron Angle was Tulpa's kind of candidate.

[KDN]

A friend of mine started a business there in about 2006 told me that he's amazed with how anti-business the climate there has gotten in such a short time. Apparently Californians voting with their feet really are completely oblivious as to why their former state is turning into such a basket case.

[califernian]

They still have no personal income tax.

[Plisade]

I left SoCal 18 years ago. As my boss told me then, I'd be joining the long line of cars leaving the state, for the same old reason in this article.

"I suppose the light coming later is better than it never coming on."

Don't hold your breath.

[Ken Shultz]

I now spend more time in Vegas than LA and San Diego combined.

It isn't the threat of taxes themselves; it's what the expected taxes are going to do to the economy. It what the regulation is doing to the local economy. It's the high cost of paying employees.

And it's not about to get any better. I love California. It's a beautiful place to live, but I wouldn't want to have to do business there over the next 20 years.

It's gonna get worse.

[Archduke Pantsfan]

and you can't be naked in San Fran anymore either!

[Loki]

What about jerkin' it in San Diego? Is that still a possibility?

[Randian]

*ahem* Jackin' it is the proper formulation.

[Loki]

D'oh!

[Randian]

Although maybe they say "jerk" in KONY 2012, so you can't be blamed.

[Loki]

Uhh, yeah, that's it, that's the ticket...

Nope, I was referencing South Park and and made a commenting FAIL.

[Warty]

Whackin' it, smackin' it...

[Killazontherun]

That's a head that can get stuck up there in your noggin.

baaaa b'BA BA

[Killazontherun]

Do I even really want to know what that slip means?

[Killazontherun]

To be fair to Cali, people suck everywhere. A trio of Drudge headlines as proof:

China: Sex Slave Dungeon Master Forced Women to Kill One Another...

Woman charged for sex with human skeleton...*

SIBLING RIVALRY: Video shows twins fighting in the womb...

* Isn't that the movie where the dude commits suicide so his girlfriend could get turned on while riding him?

[Aresen]

Woman charged for sex with human skeleton...*

Unless the skeleton objected, I see no concern here.

SIBLING RIVALRY: Video shows twins fighting in the womb...

Obviously, we need a Fetus Anti-Thumping Warning Act against this.

[Killazontherun]

Skeleton fuckers are still one of the things that suck about the human race whether you want to ban the activity or not.

[Brutus]

You can have my femur when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers...

[Killazontherun]

http://www.vice.com/read/reaso.....place-ever

Fave:

THERE IS HIPPIE BULLSHIT ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE

[Episiarch]

That is fucking great.

[darius404]

Wow, those commenters sure are self-absorbed, unselfconscious, whiny little bitches.

[darius404]

I mean un-selfaware.

[Randian]

I loved this:

"On behalf of the present moment, thanks for filling it up consciously"

🙁

[Warty]

The indignant LA dipshits in the comments are the best part.

Milla Goldenberg ? Subscribe ? Los Angeles, California
what a lazy writer. LA is a place with 10 million people and a diverse range of cultures, languages and neighborhoods, and the writer is only spending time on the sunset strip so he can moan about the LA stereotype as though he's the first person to discover it. for people who actually live here and get it, there's so much more than the industry and one ridiculous cafe that no one takes seriously. (and there is public transportation -- i take the metro to get to my non-entertainment job downtown and the train is always packed.) do some research by driving outside of west hollywood. then write a decent article that hasn't already been written a million times by other homesick, whiny transplants.
Reply ? 381 ? Like ? Follow Post ? November 26 at 4:22pm

[Loki]

Not only indignant, but West Hollywood is well known as the gay part of Hollywood, so probably a subtle touch of homophobia.

[Ken Shultz]

Yeah, I would guess a tourist's view of LA is probably pretty atrocious.

If when you come to LA, you go down Sunset, go to Venice, and think the place stinks?

That wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Where are the interesting parts of LA? I'd never tell a tourist! I'd send you to Beverly Hills or something. Tourists make everything suck.

You want to see the best parts of a city, you're never gonna find them in a guidebook. ...unless maybe you're somewhere like Salzburg, but that's like going to Colonial Williamsburg.

[Virginian]

Don't talk shit about Colonial Williamsburg!

[Ken Shultz]

I like Colonial Williamsburg.

It's just that it's...not a real place where people really go to really live and make careers for themselves. It's like going to Disneyland--not like going to LA at all.

If you check the travel guide, you'll find the best parts of Colonial Williamsburg. Not so in most other places. I've looked at the travel guide for a LA a couple of times, and I think some of the stuff they say makes some of the best parts of the city look bad, and I suspect it's becasue the authors live there--and they don't want to ruin those places by writing good things about them in a travel guide.

[Virginian]

Wait, I thought "Don't talk shit about ________!" was a longstanding HampersandR meme?

Or am I doing it wrong?

[darius404]

Hey, don't talk shit about H&R memes.

[Fatty Bolger]

Excellent. Loved the bit about the restaurants, too.

"Urban taco fabricator"? Cunts.

[Ken Shultz]

It's on Sunset Blvd.

It's for tourists and people who work in Hollywood.

All the best taco shops are authentic, which means about as unpretentious as you can get. Unpretentious like walking into a shop in Mexico City.

I can knock LA for all sorts of things. Knocking the restaurants is ridiculous.

[The Late P Brooks]

Involuntary servitude is the price we pay for civilization.

[fish]

Sunstein Declaration...?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Why are Incans going to what are essentially flyover states? Yuck. And does this mean the Golden State is going to become that much bluer as well as that much deeper into the red?

[Auric Demonocles]

Nice pic, Rach.

[Carston]

TY for the AD!!!

[califernian]

These people are so deluded. They are doing everything they can to convince people that nothing will change in California, that businesses and individuals somehow do not respond in any way to business and tax climate. WTF.

I already know a few people planning to move their busienss out of the state. I am one of them . I'm not even in the evil millionaire bracket.

[R C Dean]

I may be moving to AZ soon. I'm rooting for CA to export as many people as possible.

Go, Bluetards, go! Show us how Total State idiocy can destroy what should be the very best place on the entire planet to live!

[Brutus]

"In 1945, Miss Mitford voted the Socialist ticket. Having done her best to make England uninhabitable, she went to France to live." - Evelyn Waugh

[Redmanfms]

Nah, you can stay where you're at because it's the Commiefornia shitheads who thoroughly fucked Nevada, Colorado, and Oregon.

Bluetards never learn, they spread.

Like locusts.

[Generic Stranger]

This. 1000x this.

[AuH2O]

Sadly, as any CO resident can tell you, Californians just bring their retard statism with them.

[Emmerson Biggins]

Ya. I'm much more worried about Californians moving to my state than Mexicans. Need some kind of immigration control.

[darius404]

They really just want to turn your state into California, anyway.