I knew coming back home to Texas was the right move. And that Austin was the right city.

Now, Google Trends has corroborated the move on a professional level.

Austin is one of the top 10 cities when it comes to Internet searches of the word "tax." (Hat tip to TaxProf.)

This latest Google option analyzes who hunts for the word or words you enter to arrive at a snapshot of users by city, region or language. Type in "tax" and you get:

1. Washington, D.C. 
2. Raleigh, N.C. 
3. Dublin, Ireland 
4. Dallas, Texas 
5. Tampa,  Fla. 
6. Austin, Texas 
7. Houston, Texas 
8. Atlanta, Ga. 
9. Mumbai, India 
10. New York, N.Y.

Not surprisingly, the searches peak, based on 2004-2006 data, around April 15. Only two languages show up, English dwarfing German-speaking tax surfers.

Interestingly, make it plural and Trends comes up with a slightly different ranking:

1. Washington, D.C.   
   
2. Baltimore, Md.   
   
3. Minneapolis, Minn.   
   
4. Reston, Va.   
   
5. Raleigh, N.C.   
   
6. Philadelphia, Pa.   
   
7. Chicago, Ill.   
   
8. New York, N.Y.   
   
9. Denver, Colo.   
   
10. Atlanta, Ga.

The three Texas towns that make the top 10 in "tax" disappear when it becomes "taxes." Maybe since we have no state income tax here, we're only interested in the one federal tax.

Or maybe every time we try to type taxes, it just naturally reverts to Texas!