#LegalBytes: The Official Podcast of Cummings & Cummings Law

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings presents this powerful presentation on the controlled experiment playing out between Seattle and Bellevue. Downtown Seattle lost 30,000 jobs after imposing the JumpStart payroll tax in 2020, while Bellevue ten miles across the lake imposed no such tax. The Downtown Seattle Association reported on June 15, 2026 that the result has been a slowdown, not a jump start. Downtown Seattle office values fell 48 percent from 2020 to 2025 while Bellevue’s rose 7 percent. Seattle’s central business district vacancy climbed from 6.7 percent to 32 percent. Amazon has grown from 450 employees in Bellevue to more than 15,000 and directed major housing and transportation investment there. Seattle collected hundreds of millions in payroll tax revenue and lost half the value of its office district. The same pattern appears at the state level, where Washington ranks 45th on the Tax Foundation’s 2026 State Tax Competitiveness Index and high-profile departures to Florida continue. Two cities, same labor market, same geography. One changed the tax. The results are in. Learn more about transferring a company out of Washington: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/move-business-out-of-washington/

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings presents this powerful presentation on the decision by Apollo Global Management to establish its second headquarters in Austin and explains how to move a company out of New York while keeping the EIN, contracts, and bank accounts intact. The firm manages approximately one trillion dollars in assets and has been based in New York for its entire history. CEO Marc Rowan evaluated Austin, Miami, Palm Beach, and Nashville before selecting Texas, where most future hiring will occur. New York ranks 50th on the Tax Foundation’s 2026 State Tax Competitiveness Index while Texas ranks 7th and imposes no individual income tax. The same decision calculus that applies to a firm with four thousand employees applies to a firm with four. Headquarters location and state of incorporation should be deliberate choices, not defaults. Learn more: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/move-business-out-of-new-york/

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings examines a new law review article that challenges the traditional assumptions about where a company should be incorporated in this presentation. Professor Carliss Chatman of SMU Dedman School of Law argues that the internal affairs doctrine, which made Delaware the default for generations, governs only a small share of a company’s actual legal exposure. Most disputes arise from environmental, employment, consumer, contract, and regulatory matters that are litigated where the company operates, not where it is chartered. The article also shows that reincorporation into Texas creates no new franchise tax that operations had not already produced and proposes a practical three-part test for the incorporation decision. This presentation explains why incorporation should be a deliberate choice rather than an inheritance, and how redomestication allows business owners to transfer their company’s legal domicile to Texas or Florida without dissolving the entity, without creating a new company, and on a completely tax-free basis while preserving the same FEIN, contracts, credit history, and bank accounts. Learn more: https://www.cummings.law/onboard/texas.html

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings examines Exxon Mobil’s decision to redomesticate from New Jersey to Texas and the opposition it faced from major proxy advisory firms in this presentation. After 144 years of incorporation in New Jersey, Exxon asked shareholders to approve a move to Texas. Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis recommended against it, citing investor protections, even as both firms were engaged in litigation against the Texas Attorney General over a disclosure statute. Shareholders ultimately approved the relocation, joining Tesla, Dell Technologies, and other major companies that have already made the same move. This presentation shows how redomestication allows business owners of any size to move a business out of New Jersey without dissolving the entity, without creating a new company, and on a completely tax-free basis while preserving the same FEIN, contracts, credit history, and bank accounts. The choice of domicile belongs to the owners of the company. Learn more: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/move-business-out-of-new-jersey/

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings analyzes the latest IRS migration data and the accelerating wealth shift to no-income-tax states in this presentation. In 2023, Florida gained $21 billion in adjusted gross income from interstate moves, more than the next five states combined, while California lost $12 billion, the largest outflow of any state. Over the four-year period from 2019 to 2023, Florida gained $137 billion and California lost $91 billion. The states gaining wealth are those with no individual income tax, while the states losing wealth are those with the highest rates and the highest costs of doing business. This presentation shows how redomestication allows business owners to transfer their company’s legal domicile to a new state without dissolving the entity, without creating a new company, and on a completely tax-free basis while preserving the same FEIN, contracts, credit history, and bank accounts. If you own a business in a state losing income and population, the IRS data confirm the direction and the urgency. Learn more: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings examines the latest high-profile relocation from Washington to Florida in this presentation. Gabe Newell, the co-founder and CEO of Valve, purchased a $70.8 million waterfront estate in Manalapan, Florida, joining Jeff Bezos, Howard Schultz, and other Washington billionaires who have already left the state. Washington ranks 45th on the Tax Foundation’s 2026 State Tax Competitiveness Index after imposing a 9.9 percent capital gains tax and raising its estate tax to the highest rate in the country at 35 percent. Florida imposes no state personal income tax, no capital gains tax, and no estate tax. This presentation shows how redomestication allows business owners to transfer their company out of Washington state without dissolving the entity, without creating a new company, and on a completely tax-free basis while preserving the same FEIN, contracts, credit history, and bank accounts. If you own a business in Washington, the pattern of departures and the state's response make the decision clear. Learn more: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/move-business-out-of-washington/

Attorney and and CPA Chad D. Cummings examines Texas’s historic overtaking of California in Fortune 500 headquarters in this presentation. For the first time, Texas leads California 57 to 56 on the 2026 Fortune 500 list, a reversal driven by companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Samsung Electronics America, SpaceX, and X relocating their headquarters or legal incorporation to Texas. Texas corporations now generate more revenue as well, and the gap is expected to widen as California’s high-tax environment and proposed wealth tax continue to drive capital and talent out of the state. California ranks 48th on the Tax Foundation’s 2026 State Tax Competitiveness Index with a 13.3 percent top individual income tax rate, while Texas ranks 7th and imposes no individual income tax. This presentation shows how redomestication allows business owners to transfer their company’s legal domicile out of California without dissolving the entity, without creating a new company, and on a completely tax-free basis while preserving the same FEIN, contracts, credit history, and bank accounts. If you own a business still domiciled in California or another high-tax state, the direction of headquarters migration is clear. Learn more: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/move-business-out-of-california/

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings examines the Chicago Bears’ decision to leave Illinois after 106 years in this presentation. The franchise’s Board of Directors voted to pursue a new stadium in Hammond, Indiana, after years of failed negotiations with Illinois over public funding, while Indiana passed a funding bill in less than 60 days. Illinois ranks 38th on the Tax Foundation’s 2026 State Tax Competitiveness Index with the third-highest corporate tax rate in the country, the highest property taxes in the nation, a pension system funded at only 52 percent, and a proposed constitutional surtax that would raise the top individual rate to 7.95 percent. Indiana ranks 10th with significantly lower rates and a more competitive environment. This presentation shows how the same competitive dynamics driving the Bears, Samsung, Dell, ExxonMobil, and Tesla out of high-tax states apply to every business owner, and how redomestication allows Illinois companies to transfer to another state without dissolving the entity, without creating a new company, and on a completely tax-free basis while preserving the same FEIN, contracts, credit history, and bank accounts. If the Bears could not justify remaining in Illinois, the question for every other Illinois business owner is what is keeping you. Learn more: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/move-business-out-of-illinois/

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings examines the nationwide push for state wealth taxes and the clear lessons from Europe in this presentation. Tax Foundation president and CEO Daniel Bunn’s recent op-ed in The Hill surveys the growing movement across California, Washington, Rhode Island, Virginia, Michigan, and other states, concluding that these taxes will fail for the same reasons they failed abroad. Of the twelve OECD countries that imposed wealth taxes in 1996, nine have repealed them after capital flight, administrative complexity, and far lower revenue than projected. This presentation explains why the behavioral response at the state level will be even faster, how California’s Proposition 40 and similar measures already signal expanding thresholds and permanent taxation, and how redomestication allows business owners to transfer their company’s legal domicile to a new state without dissolving the entity, without creating a new company, and on a completely tax-free basis while preserving the same FEIN, contracts, credit history, and bank accounts. If you own a business in a state pursuing these measures, the window to act is before they pass. Learn more: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings discusses Samsung Electronics' rapid relocation from New Jersey to Texas in this presentation. Eight months after opening a new 270,000 square foot headquarters in New Jersey, Samsung announced it is moving its U.S. headquarters and 1,000 corporate jobs to its campus in Plano, Texas. Samsung joins other major companies like Mercedes-Benz, Hertz, and ExxonMobil in choosing Texas over New Jersey, where the corporate tax rate reaches 11.5 percent. This presentation examines the growing corporate migration to Texas and how the same redomestication process Samsung effectively used for its operations is available to small and mid-sized businesses. Redomestication transfers the company to a new state without dissolution and without federal income tax consequences when performed correctly, preserving the FEIN, contracts, credit history, and bank accounts. If you own a business in a high-tax state like New Jersey, the math that Samsung performed is instructive. Learn more: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/