Podcast
#LegalBytes: The Official Podcast of Cummings & Cummings Law
Hosted by Cummings & Cummings Law · EN
Legal, tax, financial, accounting, and estate planning concepts for business owners and their families
142episodes
Episodes
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Digital nomads: how to move your company to a new state and keep the EIN & contracts [step-by-step]
2d ago00:13:27Tap to summarizeAttorney 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/
Transcribe →Truckers: how to move your trucking company to a new state and keep your DOT number
5d ago00:11:13Tap to summarizeAttorney 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/
Transcribe →How to move your company out of California and keep your EIN [step-by-step]
6d ago00:13:01Tap to summarizeAttorney 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
Transcribe →How to move an LLC or corporation to another state [step-by-step]
1w ago00:13:56Tap to summarizeAttorney 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/
Transcribe →Time is running out: how to move your company out of California [step-by-step]
1w ago00:13:26Tap to summarizeAttorney 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
Transcribe →How to convert your company to Texas [step-by-step]
1w ago00:13:11Tap to summarizeAttorney 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
Transcribe →How to move your company out of Maryland and keep the EIN [step-by-step]
2w ago00:13:44Tap to summarizeAttorney 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/
Transcribe →How to move your company out of Minnesota and keep the EIN [step-by-step]
2w ago00:15:36Tap to summarizeAttorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings presents this timely presentation on the five features of Minnesota’s tax code that make the state uniquely expensive for business owners. Minnesota taxes long-term capital gains at a higher effective rate than ordinary income through a surtax that few business owners discover until the year they sell. The top individual income tax rate is 9.85 percent, the fifth highest in the country, so one million dollars of pass-through income generates a $98,500 state tax bill that would be zero in Florida or Texas. The corporate income tax rate is 9.8 percent, the second highest in the nation, and the state also imposes an alternative minimum tax plus inclusion of certain foreign subsidiary income. Minnesota is one of the few states that maintains an alternative minimum tax on individuals, requiring many taxpayers to calculate liability twice and pay the higher amount. The legislature is considering a one percent annual wealth tax on non-real assets exceeding ten million dollars. Minnesota also maintains a 16 percent top estate tax rate and a split-roll property tax that shifts more of the burden onto commercial property. Every one of Minnesota’s five neighbors offers a lower tax burden. South Dakota imposes no income tax. The most expensive state in its region is surrounded by states competing for its residents and businesses by cutting rates while Minnesota responds by proposing a wealth tax. Learn more about transfering your company out of Minnesota: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/move-business-out-of-minnesota/
Transcribe →NYC exodus continues: how to move your company out of New York and keep your EIN [step-by-step]
2w ago00:13:42Tap to summarizeAttorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings presents this powerful presentation on New York’s shrinking share of the nation’s millionaires. The Citizen Budget Commission, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog, found that New York’s share fell from 12.7 percent in 2010 to 8.7 percent in 2022, the steepest decline of any state. Had New York maintained its 2010 share, the state would have collected $10.7 billion more in personal income tax revenue in 2022 alone. The top one percent of earners pay approximately 45 percent of all state income taxes. When those earners leave, nearly half the income tax base leaves with them. Mayor Zohran Mamdani responded by filming a video outside Ken Griffin’s $238 million Manhattan penthouse announcing the pied-à-terre tax, projected to raise $500 million per year. The departures are costing $10.7 billion. The ratio is 21 to 1. For every dollar the new tax generates, the millionaire exodus removes twenty-one dollars from the state’s income tax base. New York has lost more residents to every other state than it has gained from any of them, with Florida and Texas as the top destinations. A taxpayer earning five million dollars in New York City owes approximately $700,000 in combined state and city income taxes. In Florida or Texas that figure is zero. Over ten years the difference is seven million dollars. The data show the cost of remaining has exceeded the cost of leaving. Learn more about transferring your company out of NYC: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/move-business-out-of-new-york/
Transcribe →NYC's new pied-à-terre tax: how to transfer a company out of NYC and keep the EIN [step-by-step]
2w ago00:11:52Tap to summarizeAttorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings presents this powerful presentation on New York City’s new pied-à-terre tax. The tax was sold as targeting 31,000 luxury second homes. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration then published a searchable database containing more than 960,000 residences and individuals, complete with full names and addresses. The list includes modest homes in working-class neighborhoods of the Bronx and Staten Island. Council Minority Leader David Carr found his own home on the list and called the publication reckless. Author Alex Berenson reported that his 81-year-old mother, a full-time resident of her townhouse for 30 years, received a letter claiming she owed $56,000. City Hall projects $500 million in annual revenue while the City Comptroller projects $340 million to $380 million and declining collections as owners sell, dispute, or leave. The mayor announced the tax by filming a video outside Ken Griffin’s penthouse. New York ranks 50th on the Tax Foundation’s 2026 State Tax Competitiveness Index. The pattern is familiar: the tax is proposed as limited to the wealthiest, the threshold is set high, and the implementation expands dramatically. Redomestication is the legal process of transferring a company out of New York without dissolving it. When paired with a change of personal residency and a reduction of New York operations, it can reduce or eliminate state tax exposure for the entity and its owners. Learn more: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/move-business-out-of-new-york/
Transcribe →