[Discuss] taxachusetts and the future of tech
Rich Braun
richb at pioneer.ci.net
Wed Jul 31 11:48:04 EDT 2013
Joseph Guarino asked:
> ... why create a new tax that
> discourages business from existing in Taxachusetts. It should be clear
> to local and state politicians that we are not a competitive state when
> we place in the 25th in the nation vs. other states for business
> attractiveness. Do we want to attract new firms and foster startups?
> Do we want job growth?
Writing from California, I contemplate that I voted with my feet and a one-way
airline ticket to get the heck out of Massachusetts. However I'm not sure how
persuasive the tax argument is: I came to CA because it's more (*vastly*
more) attractive to IT people like me these days than MA is or even once was.
The Internet was originally designed and built in Massachusetts. Some of the
most-familiar (but now aging) open-source software was created in
Massachusetts.
But starting around the time of the 1999-2000 dot-com bust, most investors and
businesses in Massachusetts took a hard turn away from all things IT.
During a Nov. 2011 vacation trip to CA, I let a friend refer me to a couple of
his recruiters on the west coast. That opened the floodgates; once I changed
my LinkedIn profile from the "021xx" ZIP code to "941xx", I've been getting 10
to 25 inquiries per week. Non-stop, for years now. Before that, I was
struggling to find anyone (with money to spend/invest/hire) interested in
hearing about my "devops" initiatives. Things in MA are better now in 2013
than they were in 2011 but there's more to this state-by-state competition
than just taxes.
Today's open-source software is now more likely to be created on the west
coast or overseas than in MA, alas.
-rich
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