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California Seeks To Tax Rocket Launches, Which Are Already Taxed (arstechnica.com)
The state of California is looking into taxing its thriving rocket industry. The Franchise Tax Board has issued a proposed regulation for public comment that would require companies that launch spacecraft to pay a tax based upon "mileage" traveled by that spacecraft from California. Ars Technica reports: The proposal says that California-based companies that launch spacecraft will have to pay a tax based upon "mileage" traveled by that spacecraft from California. (No, we're not exactly sure what this means, either). The proposed regulations were first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, and Thomas Lo Grossman, a tax attorney at the Franchise Tax Board, told the newspaper that the rules are designed to mirror the ways taxes are levied on terrestrial transportation and logistics firms operating in California, like trucking or train companies. The tax board is seeking public input from now until June 16, when it is expected to vote on the proposed tax. The federal government already has its own taxes for commercial space companies, and until now no other state has proposed taxing commercial spaceflight. In fact most other states, including places like Florida, Texas, and Georgia, offer launch providers tax incentives to move business into their areas.
This is so stupid that it makes my head hurt. Way to fuck over the private space industry, California!
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Won't this encourage companies to launch their rockets from different states, possibly taking jobs with them? What is the point of this tax?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Isn't this just California doing the thing it is best at?
Couldn't you simply write:
Way to fuck over the INSERT TYPE OF BUSINESS HERE industry?
That pretty much defines California. Hell, even Apple with more money than God built a campus in the shape of a wheel so they could role it out of the state when the taxes became too large a burden even for them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How about we stop trying to fund California (which by the way provides well more than its share of tax revenues to the federal gov't compared to its receipts) using taxes on new industries and new people who help us create new value, and instead remove the tax protections for entrenched old people who got here first, got theirs, and now are happy to put most of the share of the burden on everyone else? Prop 13, unions, local regulations that prevent affordble housing -- I'm looking at you.
If this tax does pass, expect companies like SpaceX to move out of California, and either Sea Launch to be revitalized or a new company doing the same thing as Sea Launch (launching rockets from a platform in the middle of the ocean) to spring up.
I've worked at a couple smaller hardware based companies including on the East Coast and the Midwest, and now work at a place on the West Coast. There are plenty of other cities around the US that have quite a tech industry and worker pool to draw from, while having an interesting enough scene that you can get harder to find employees to relocate there. I've also seen start ups and companies built in smaller towns in the Midwest who draw in people looking for quieter towns and low cost of living.
The only place I've worked at that has had trouble getting employees to come out to them is the one I work at now on the West Coast. We have to pay employees almost double what similar employees were paid in other places with lower cost of living. Even then, some just refuse, because what coworkers pay for rent here on small place would be a 10-year mortgage payment on a huge place in one of the other cities. The company is expanding, and the land costs for the company are skyrocketing too, as opposed to the other places that could get large plots of land 5-10 minutes outside the city for almost nothing. The regulations seem harsher too, in terms of the number of people and permits needed for things we install within our current building. The only reason the company is here is because of inertia from the founders who already lived in the city, and they regret that choice.
There is some argument for creating a business near where the product will be sold, or near where you are trying to poach people from some existing similar businesses (specialists, or will need a large skilled labor force). But if your business simply needs some good programmers, engineers, and a couple specialists, you could setup shop in a lot of places.
With taxes you buy - civilisation. Somehow, I think you actually want things like a sewage system, a justice system, a police force, roads, an education system. Perhaps you'd prefer to have ones that worked, too.
So they have to be paid for.
Sharing costs is good way to do things, especially for things that are very costly but quite rare, like earthquakes, or major heart attacks.
Why do people hate taxes so much? The results do have considerable value - have you been to, say, Papua New Guinea?
"Cats like plain crisps"
There we go again...
If it moves, tax it.
If it keeps moving, regulate it.
And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
An classic observation by a former governor of California...