Tech billionaires are making plans to bail on California ahead a possible ballot measure that would tax their assets to help pay for healthcare.
Sources told the New York Times that venture capitalist Peter Thiel has explored spending more time outside California and opening an office for his Los Angeles-based personal investment firm, Thiel Capital, in another state.
California is pretty strict about taxing you if you spend too much time there.
I’m in Washington state (no state income tax) and have had colleagues who’ve spent a lot of time in California warned by payroll that they’re approaching the limit on time before you’re deemed a tax resident (maybe 180 days per year, but I’m not sure).
In particular, any part of a day spent in California counts as a whole day, as I understand it. So if you fly in on Monday evening, spend Tuesday and Wednesday, then fly back Thursday morning, it’s 4 days.
In order for that to kick in, you need to be drawing salaried income, otherwise they have no means of tracking you. Salary is an insignificant component of most billionaires’ income.