After 40 years (born and raised) I left WA. Moment is leaving this month as well. I'm not even a millionaire affected by this tax. But when you add up all the costs to run a business in WA we can't afford it. You can build a remote team and re-open in Wyoming, removing all of these costs. WA is incredibly beautiful (especially the summers) and the people are great. Unfortunately the numbers don't lie and unless you run a super high margin software business, WA is just too expensive. Personally...you'd never pick WA to start a company. - Gas taxes (now some of the highest in the state) - Sales tax (up to 10.5% in Seattle) - Property tax (1% of your home value with a path they can take this to 3%. In total $ this tax they have increased nearly 100% over the last decade) - Capital gains tax (new in the last three years went form 0 -> 9%. it targets business owners and not real-estate). - Estate tax (they recently changed it to a progressive system that is up to 35% just to the state of WA) - Housing prices are some of the highest in the country. - Food costs are unreal, just visit a Seattle restaurant or grocery store. Business... - Very little capital. Great angels but almost no VC or larger funding sources. - Super high salaries for tech talent (this has changed but amazon, microsoft, etc paid very high rates for a very long time). - B&O Tax: paid as a % of your sales. - Sales & Use Tax (this is the real killer) What pushed us out was the recent change to Sales & Use Tax. It used to be you paid this tax on physical things you bought for your business, similar to sales tax. Now you pay it on 100% of the items you buy, think shopify, aws, google, etc. Even if your team is remote you pay 10% sales tax on 100% of these purchases no matter where peole are located. But the real kicker, was they expanced this law to be a tax that applies to all digital advertising. Run FB ads in Germany? You pay WA state a 10% tax. Overnight that is a+$200K a year tax that did not exist last year. Again not even based in where your ads run or where your team is. Incorporated in WA state? You will pay this tax. What makes this sad is all political diversity disappeared years ago. It's that debate that keeps government from taking everything. One political team has run the state for +30 years and Seattle for more than 50 years. This train has been coming for years and is now accelerating. WA government can never have enough $. I hope there is a new generation of company builders who see this is an opportunity and can run into the burning building.