I closed my small consulting business last year. In truth, it was over about 2000, but I kept the corporation open expecting to return to consulting after my kids left High School. My plan remains unchanged, but I've decided that there is absolutely no way I can afford to run any sort of a business in California. My "competition" works out of state for half the rate I must get to pay off California, or worse, overseas for $5 an hour.
My new Corporation will reside outside California. There is nothing, absolutely nothing to prevent me from doing a day or so of "marketing" in the California market, while signing contracts and executing the work in Nevada. Any client who wants me or my employees on site in California will have to pay between $150 and $250 per hour, and half that rate will go to pay California taxes (i.e. as a "Foreign Corporation") or related costs, and for subsisting in the high-tax driven California economy. It's no wonder jobs are leaving in droves. It's not just the direct, immediate taxes that make California a tough business climate, but every service and product purchased in California passes their taxes along. The Democrat leftists think "big business" just "absorbs" taxes. Most are too simple minded to figure out that half the cost of a new home is DIRECTLY related to California taxation and regulatory policy, that almost $0.50 per gallon of gasoline is Federal, State, and Local taxes, and that they are playing TEN TIMES the rate for power to their homes or business ...again, directly attributable to the California State Legislature.
I'm a life-long Californian.. have two kids in school, and as soon as they graduate, I'm out of CA forever. I can pay cash for a house twice the size of mine in about 15 Western States from the hyper-inflated "equity" in my current house, and my savings in income tax and power costs alone will pay any mortgage. I'll restart my business there, and begin the long slow climb towards a retirement savings .. starting at age 50. My years in California have been a total a loss (more so if the Real Estate market crashes before I can get out), and I have the California Democrats to blame. It's all on them .. every law and policy for the past 20 years. If the try, they'll have trouble finding enough Republicans to blame (Davis tried that) around the Capital; they are extinct.
SFS