Sacramento, Florida, or Overseas?

[ishwri]

Hello, forum members. I wanted to ask abot sacramento. I am currently focusing on creating a business and moving overseas. I live in florida and I hate it. My buddy want me to move to sacramento and live there, and the women are different. Im not sure if I want to make this move.

Can you tell me how is the environment in northern california? What are the women like in sacramento? Should I focus on moving abroad?

[Jester]

Where in FL?

[momopi]

Hello, forum members. I wanted to ask about Sacramento. I am currently focusing on creating a business and moving overseas. I live in Florida and I hate it. My buddy want me to move to Sacramento and live there, and the women are different. I'm not sure if I want to make this move. Can you tell me how is the environment in northern California? What are the women like in Sacramento? Should I focus on moving abroad?

Northern CA is a BIG place, and Sacramento is only one city out of 65 in North CA with population of >50,000. The folks that you'd meet in North CA varies a lot from place to place. In San Jose you could find yourself living near an ethnic Chinese enclave, versus in the winery regions you'd find yourself living in rural setting with lots of grapevines and forests. San Francisco bay area would differ drastically from say, Davis with many cows.

Sacramento is an old town, and you'd find a lot of 1,000 sq ft 3 bed 1 bath vintage homes in tree-lined streets, which sells for ~$60,000 in current market. That's below construction cost and the neighborhood can be iffy. If you go to the nearby suburbs such as Rancho Cordova, the same SFR would cost $120k in better neighborhood. Assuming that your buddy lives in Sacramento, you should probably consult him about the area and the people.

[drealm]

If you're going to incur the expense of moving somewhere it should be reasonably better.

I don't know what it's like in Florida, but I don't know of anyone who moves to California for Sacramento. It's not a job hub and has zero industry. Maybe a few tech firms have started there? But it's not silicon valley. It's nowhere close to the ocean. So even if you're moving to a coastal state you might as well live in colorado as you'll never see the coastline. It's not known for being culturally interesting in any way. It's a place for people whom can't afford to live in the bay area and this mean's you mostly have people whom live their for cheaper rent. This doesn't make the people bad, but no one cares about this place in any way. Along with lower rents comes a higher crime rate and lower class people. There's spotty parts of Sacramento.

If your question was "should I move to San Francisco" or "should I move to the bay area", I'd answer differently. The bay area is gorgeous ecologically speaking. I love the red woods and being so close to the ocean. I've lived here my whole life so I have no clue what it means to live in a land locked area. The idea of not seeing the pacific ocean for more than a week actually strikes me as somewhat strange.

A nice thing about the bay area is you get variety. If you like exploring ethnic foods, the bay area is probably one of the culturally immigrant densest restaurant meccas in the United States.

However let's get down to business. None of us are on this board travel for food. We all want women. If we get food on the side, great! But there's a reason plenty of guys here go to the Philippines and it's not cuisine. If you're gonna move to the bay area for women, you're going to find liberal feminist bitches. The bay area is ground zero for every stupid female idea over the past 50 years. This place prides itself on being the most liberal progressive powder keg in the united states. So you're not gonna find women any easier here than in Florida. Frankly I don't see how anyone can see any part of the united states as better for women. The grass is brown all over.

[momopi]

However let's get down to business. None of us are on this board travel for food. We all want women. If we get food on the side, great! But there's a reason plenty of guys here go to the Philippines and it's not cuisine. If you're gonna move to the bay area for women, you're going to find liberal feminist bitches. The bay area is ground zero for every stupid female idea over the past 50 years. This place prides itself on being the most liberal progressive powder keg in the united states. So you're not gonna find women any easier here than in Florida. Frankly I don't see how anyone can see any part of the united states as better for women. The grass is brown all over.

I'd travel for food & wine. France > PH.

[terminator]

Forget about the USA - go overseas to start a business.

[American White Guy]

I would incorporate in the US for a number of reasons - even if you do business somewhere else.

My advice is based on the assumption that you are a US Citizen. If you are not, then some of this may not apply to you.

These are all subjective as well. I am sure for every point I make there could be a counter-argument or a way around it, but ultimately it comes down to how comfortable you are and how much time are you willing to waste on legal compliance or other issues.

Finally, none of my advice will apply if you want to start a convenience store or some other physical "local" business where most of your clients are going to be in the place you conduct your business and most of your transactions will be done in person (since you pretty much have no choice in where you incorporate or get licenses, etc. in that case).

If you are looking for that type of business, then you should do research into area demographics, geography, regulations specific to your desired type of business, etc. in more depth than anyone can help you on this forum.

1. If you are US citizen you will be taxed the same regardless of where your business is located. You may have lower tax rates abroad (depending on where) but if they are lower than what the US rate is then you may still owe US taxes even if you never set foot here.

Of course some will argue that if you play your cards right the government will never know. That may be true. However, if shit ever hits the fan and the government gets wind of it (like say someone you burned overseas sends a tip to the IRS or something) you will be in a world of hurt.

When I discussed grey strategies with my business lawyer for minimizing my tax burdens he said "the IRS can do things that haven't been heard of since the Spanish Inquisition." Basically, if you are US Citizen you want to make sure you comply with the letter of the law, especially if you ever plan on coming back to the US or owning anything here.

Also, if you use some legal tax methods to keep your income sheltered from the IRS, you may not be able to repatriate the money. Meaning as soon as you withdraw or spend the money here, the IRS is going to be on you like white on rice unless you pay uncle sam his cut.

2. If you are going to deal with American clients (like if you start a consultancy or web design company or something like that where your clients are international) then you are going to have an easier time signing contracts as an American company.

They will also trust you more, and you will have the peace of mind of settling disputes or problems within the American legal system which despite its flaws would be familiar to you and also fairly objective (the odds of bribing a judge in the US are probably slim to none compared to overseas judges being bribed or otherwise corrupted).

In my business, I have gotten clients to send me down payments for services in the amounts of $10,000+ without batting an eyelash. Even though my fulfillment is done overseas, I am an American corporation with a US street address, professional liability insurance here in the US, and a contract that names a local jurisdiction here as the place disputes are settled. Basically 0 red flags that would make someone think I am a scammer.

Would I be able to get a company to send me $10,000 before services have been rendered if I told them to wire it to a foreign bank account with 0 liability insurance and the only way to settle disputes was for them to fly to a country they aren't familiar with and see what they can do? I think NOT.

Similarly, if I was doing post-payment, what if the company decides to stiff you out of your money? Thinking you are an overseas company they will say to themselves if we skip out on this bill what are they going to do? Fly to the US to try to sue us? This is more common than you think. Most people who run small call centers in the Philippines who I have heard about have been stiffed by American clients out of big sums of money at one time or another. This may apply to other industries as well.

I would be willing to offer more specific advice if I knew anything about the type of business you want to start.

Also, as far as living arrangements go, I would not start a business in California. The amounts of regulations and taxes are insane and as long as the Democrats are in charge there the situation will only get worse. But if money is no object, then I suppose that's not a problem if that's really where you want to be.

My advice is to look for a type of business you can run from your computer. That way you have maximum freedom to move around as you please and you can take advantage of the most favorable terms for everything. A true "Best of all worlds" situation. Don't do something super capital intensive and limiting like a convenience store, laundromat, or restaurant. Those require a lot of money down, produce small returns, often have a long break even point, and act as an anchor that will make it hard to ever leave.