zlacker

>>belter+(OP)
"...employees who move to Austin by the end of June will receive $7,000 stipends for relocating."

I would not relocate to Austin or anywhere else in Texas for $70,000 much less $7000. Even a bastion of sanity in Texas is still in Texas. What if my daughter needed healthcare "south of the border", go to court?

I'd take my chances with the severance pay and live somewhere sane where they can keep the lights on.

>>jakeda+9c
No state income tax likely does make this closer to $70k annual for most of those employees. If they get to keep their California salary it's a great deal.

>>mesozo+cs
They were offered a $7k one-time provision to offset relocation costs, the $70k figure was just a hyperbolic quip by the commenter you replied to. The average cost of housing is certainly lower, but despite the lack of an income tax, the average state and local tax burden for median incomes in Texas is significantly higher (12.73%) than in California (8.97%) [1].

The only people for whom Texas is a better deal for taxation are in the highest income brackets, higher even than tech workers at Apple. This is the case even though access to healthcare, higher education, and public services tends to be worse. This is why eliminating income taxes in favor of consumption and property taxes is widely considered to be regressive and disproportionately targeted at lower and middle class households. The higher median tax rate then seems to simply be a redistribution mechanism to funnel additional wealth to the wealthy on the backs of working Texans.

[1] https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-states-to-be-a-taxpayer...