California is getting really absurd - from The San Francisco Chronicle:
California plans for collecting taxes on spaceflight
The earthly convention of paying taxes may soon extend into outer space, if California regulators have anything to say about it.
The state’s Franchise Tax Board is seeking public comment on its proposal for computing taxes on commercial space transportation companies.
The private spaceflight industry remains small, despite grand ambitions to shuttle everything from tourists to 3-D printers into space. But the board says it created the rules to give entrepreneurs the confidence that once their businesses really start to take off, California’s tax code will be ready to handle them.
The rules are designed to apply to any company operating in California that generates at least half the money it takes in from “space transportation” — defined as the movement of people or property 62 miles above the surface of the Earth. That’s the internationally recognized line that separates our planet from the rest of space. It would apply to companies that use California as a launchpad, not California companies launching from other states, like Texas or Florida.
And it gets worse:
According to the proposal, California will collect tax from space transportation companies based on a formula factoring in how often a company launches spacecrafts out of the state, and, most importantly, how far a commercial spacecraft travels from California soil.
Look for new launch facilities to be built in Florida and Texas. One example that has already happened:
At least one company has already been lured away from California for the promise of greater financial incentives — though of a more earthly variety. Moon Express, a company working to mine the moon for natural resources, moved from Mountain View to Florida.
In an email, the company’s CEO and founder, Bob Richards, said the company “relocated from California to Florida in part due to the State of Florida’s progressive economic development incentives designed to attract commercial space companies.
Unreal - what are they smoking and how can I avoid it? It is making them stupid.
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