#LegalBytes: The Official Podcast of Cummings & Cummings Law

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings reviews Proposition 40, the California Billionaire Tax Act on the November 3, 2026 ballot. The measure imposes a one-time five percent tax on the net worth of billionaires who resided in California as of January 1, 2026, measured as of December 31, 2026. A Tax Foundation analysis by Jared Walczak concludes the measure is vulnerable to constitutional challenge on so many independent grounds that courts may strike it down entirely. The residency date precedes the election by more than ten months, so a person who left on January 2 still owes tax on worldwide wealth at year-end, including assets accumulated elsewhere. The measure claims apportionment without any reduction based on residency history. A nonresident spouse’s out-of-state wealth can be attributed to the California spouse, trusts funded by a California billionaire are captured even when all parties and assets sit elsewhere, and divorce debts are added back. Appraisers face uncapped penalties of up to four percent of any understatement. If courts invalidate the tax, California still faces the departure of founders, the deterrence of future ones, years of litigation, and zero collections. Florida and Texas have no personal income tax and no wealth tax. Neither attempts to tax people who already left or to reach spouses and assets outside their borders. Learn more about moving your California LLC or corporation to another state: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/move-business-out-of-california

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings examines New York’s new Pied-à-Terre Tax. Signed by Governor Kathy Hochul on May 28, 2026 and effective July 1, the law imposes an annual surcharge on New York City residential property that is not the owner’s primary residence and has a market value above five million dollars. Occupancy of 183 days or fewer triggers it, and cooperative shares are treated as real property. The state projects five hundred million dollars in revenue. The tax targets former residents who kept a foothold in the city rather than current residents. The Department of Finance released a tax roll covering more than nine hundred thousand properties; a Staten Island court temporarily halted the rollout on August 10 after incorrect primary-residence flags, with roughly seventeen thousand notices already issued. Cooperative valuations rely on opaque share-allocation arithmetic. Florida and Texas impose no personal income tax and no comparable second-home surcharge. Property is fixed and cannot be moved. A company can be. Anyone who has received a notice should consult counsel and assemble residency and occupancy records before responding. Learn about transferring your company out of New York: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/move-business-out-of-new-york/

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings notes that consulting practices are among the easiest businesses to relocate and among the most likely to remain stuck in the wrong state. A consulting firm has no factory or storefront; its assets are a laptop, a methodology, and a client list. Yet many consultants still file annual reports and pay fees in a state they left years ago. California imposes an $800 minimum franchise tax on an LLC that earned nothing, plus gross-receipts fees above certain thresholds. New York requires costly newspaper publication for new LLCs and biennial filing fees. Illinois and New Jersey tax the income that passes through to the owner. Florida and Texas impose no personal income tax. Because most consulting practices are single-member LLCs or S corporations, that income lands directly on the owner’s personal return. Tax Foundation data shows the average business relocating to a no-income-tax state retains more than $12,500 each year. Florida and Texas also maintain strong asset-protection statutes and predictable business law, valuable when the product is advice that can later be second-guessed. Redomestication moves the existing entity so the federal employer identification number, engagement letters, banking relationships, and professional liability coverage all continue without interruption. Owners need not live in the destination state; a commercial registered agent satisfies the street-address requirement. Personal tax residency remains a separate question for counsel and a tax professional and should be resolved before any filing. Learn more about moving your consulting practice to a new state: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings addresses the digital nomad whose company is still stuck in the wrong state. You work from a laptop in Lisbon, Mexico City, or Chiang Mai. Clients pay in dollars through Stripe, and nothing about how you earn requires a fixed location. Yet the LLC or corporation you formed years ago still has a domicile that demands franchise fees, annual reports, and in some cases a claim on income earned thousands of miles away. California imposes an $800 minimum franchise tax even on an LLC that earns nothing and has a long record of pursuing former residents. New York applies similar persistence. Redomestication moves the company you already have. The federal employer identification number stays the same, so your Stripe account, business banking, merchant processing, and client contracts remain intact. Dissolving and reforming severs all of it. Florida and Texas impose no personal income tax. For a single-member LLC or S corporation, business income flows to your personal return, and neither state cares that you spend most of the year abroad. Neither imposes California’s minimum franchise tax. A commercial registered agent satisfies the street-address requirement; owners and members are not required to live there. Personal tax residency remains a separate question for counsel and a tax professional. Your work stopped being tied to a location. Your company can stop being tied to the wrong one. Learn about redomesticating your company to a new state: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings explains why owner-operators should never dissolve their company when leaving a high-tax state. The DOT number, MC authority, safety record, insurance rate, and factoring relationship all sit on one legal entity. Dissolving it ends the FEIN, the Form 2290 history, and the operating record, forcing a new DOT number, a new entrant audit, and an empty CSA profile that underwriters and brokers treat as zero history. Redomestication moves the home state of the existing company so the entity, identification number, authority, and contracts all survive. Florida and Texas impose no personal income tax on the pass-through income that settles into a single-member LLC or S corporation. The average business relocating to a no-income-tax state retains more than $12,500 a year. California regulates trucks as a problem; Texas and Florida treat freight as essential. Moving the company is legal and does not require burning down what you spent years building. Learn more about moving your trucking company to a new state: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings notes a Financial Times report from New Zealand that reveals more about California than about the South Pacific. A private club is sending eight new golden-visa arrivals on a polar expedition into the Southern Alps. Applications under the program jumped from 115 over three years to more than 700 in the past fourteen months, with Americans filing 277 and Californians leading. The entry price is five million New Zealand dollars. One California fund manager who obtained a visa complained to the Prime Minister that spending more than 183 days a year would trigger tax on her worldwide earnings and warned that every dollar is mobile. Florida and Texas impose no personal income tax, require no minimum investment, and impose no day-count trap that converts global income into local tax liability. High-tax states assumed residents were captive. The capital kept moving. Learn more about redomesticating out of California: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/move-business-out-of-california

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings reviews the U.S. Census Bureau’s domestic migration data for 2025. California lost 229,100 residents to other states. New York lost 137,600. Illinois lost 40,000. New Jersey lost 37,400. Massachusetts lost 33,300. Those five states produced a combined outflow of 477,400 people in a single year. Visual Capitalist mapped the figures, and the pattern is clear: the country is sorting itself by tax policy. California ranks 48th on the Tax Foundation’s 2026 State Tax Competitiveness Index. New York ranks 50th. New Jersey ranks 49th. Massachusetts ranks 43rd. Illinois ranks in the bottom quarter. Four of the six lowest-ranked states for tax competitiveness sit among the five largest domestic losers. Learn about moving your company to another state: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings analyzes the July 26, 2026 sale of Steve Wynn’s Beverly Hills estate. Wynn purchased the 2.7-acre property in 2015 for $47.85 million, invested millions in renovations that expanded it to 27,000 square feet with 11 bedrooms and 14.5 bathrooms, listed it for $110 million in January 2021, and ultimately sold it for $47.75 million—$100,000 less than the original purchase price before any improvements. Listing agent Leonard Rabinowitz of Christie’s International Real Estate called the outcome disappointing and attributed it directly to California’s tax environment and the proposed billionaire tax, which have caused high-net-worth residents to leave the state and shrink the buyer pool. This is the second-order consequence of the exodus documented across this channel: when the potential buyers of $100 million homes relocate to Florida and Texas, sellers in Beverly Hills cannot clear previous price levels. The transaction stands as the highest-priced home sale in Beverly Hills for 2026, yet it closed below the 2015 acquisition cost. Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Travis Kalanick, and David Sacks are among those who have shifted capital out of California. Miami is setting records while California’s ultra-luxury market softens. The state’s wealth tax measure, set for the November 3 ballot, would impose a five percent levy on billionaire assets and has already drawn statements that the threshold will not remain fixed at one billion. Combined with a 13.3 percent top income tax rate, an 8.84 percent corporate rate, and the nation’s highest state sales tax, California has become expensive to live in, operate in, and now sell in. The agent stated the buying pool is shrinking—in the present tense. Learn more about how to move your company out of California: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/move-business-out-of-california

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings examines the launch of the Texas Stock Exchange. The TXSE, based in Dallas and pronounced “Tex-ee,” went fully live on July 31, 2026 as the first new major U.S. stock exchange in decades. It has raised approximately $275 million from BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citadel Securities, Charles Schwab, and Jane Street Group. Corporate listings are expected in the fourth quarter of 2026, with the first IPOs planned for 2027. The same firms that built Wall Street are now funding the exchange that will compete with it. Governor Greg Abbott has called the Texas Stock Exchange the natural extension of a shift in the center of gravity for American capitalism toward the boom belt, a region now referred to as Y’all Street. Both the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq responded by opening their own Texas branches. Texas has spent the last two years assembling the full infrastructure: the Texas Business Court launched in September 2024, Senate Bill 29 codified the business judgment rule and other governance tools, and more than 25 companies representing over four trillion dollars in market value have committed to leaving Delaware for Texas since mid-2024. Dell, ExxonMobil, Tesla, SpaceX, and Samsung have already moved. Texas imposes no individual income tax and ranks 7th on the Tax Foundation’s 2026 State Tax Competitiveness Index. New York ranks 50th. The TXSE pitch centers on greater transparency, competitive pricing, and the pro-business orientation of the state. For companies considering transferring to Texas those factors now come with a stock exchange attached. Learn more: https://www.cummings.law/onboard/texas.html

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings presents this provocative overview of Maryland’s 2025 tax legislation, which the Tax Foundation described as the most aggressive package of tax increases in the nation. The changes were made retroactive to January 1, 2025. Maryland ranks 46th on the Tax Foundation’s 2026 State Tax Competitiveness Index after falling past Washington. The individual income tax expanded to ten brackets with a new top state rate of 6.5 percent. County income tax caps rose to 3.3 percent, allowing combined state and local rates to reach 9.8 percent. A two percent capital gains surcharge on federal adjusted gross income above $350,000 produces a combined capital gains rate of 11.8 percent. Section 179 first-year expensing for pass-through businesses is capped at $25,000 against a federal allowance of one million dollars. The corporate rate is 8.25 percent and includes global intangible low-taxed income, converting to net CFC-tested income under recent federal law. A pending bill would raise the top individual rate to 7 percent and impose mandatory worldwide combined reporting, making Maryland the first state to require it. Maryland is the only state that imposes both an estate tax at 16 percent and an inheritance tax at 10 percent. It is also the only state that taxes digital advertising, digital services, and business-to-business technology transactions. Florida and Texas impose neither an estate tax nor an inheritance tax and have no individual income tax. Learn about transferring your company out of Maryland: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/move-business-out-of-maryland/