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San Francisco Doing Everything It Can To Drive Zynga And Twitter Away

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Re: San Francisco Doing Everything It Can To Drive Zynga And Twitter Away

#4

What makes Twitter and Zynga more deserving of tax breaks than any other company in the city? Honest question.

I'd rather work somewhere else than pay even higher taxes, and lots of people are thinking exactly this same thing.

SF isn't being competitive with the surrounding towns.

Re: San Francisco Doing Everything It Can To Drive Zynga And Twitter Away

#5

What makes Twitter and Zynga more deserving of tax breaks than any other company in the city? Honest question.

The author makes the case that these companies are driving job growth, and that the tax on stock being treated as payroll is unusual and counterproductive.

Re: San Francisco Doing Everything It Can To Drive Zynga And Twitter Away

#6
Oh, give me a break. I live in the supposed "tax free hooker area", and there are probably more hookers in the lounge of the Ritz Carlton than there are near the SF Furniture Mart (where the city wants Twitter to move). It's not like they're proposing to move them into an abandoned Happy Donut at the corner of 6th and Market.

City hall and the Asian Art Museum are one block north. The opera, symphony and ballet are two blocks northwest. There are two high-rise, luxury condominium buildings directly across the street. Walk 10 minutes west, and you're smack in the middle of one of the city's up-and-coming neighborhoods (Hayes Valley), replete with boutique shopping, gourmet coffee stands and antique stores.

If offering Twitter a sweetheart lease on a gigantic building in a gentrifying urban neighborhood and giving them a tax break is enough to drive them away, then I sincerely wish Twitter luck in trying to retain their employees once they move to Brisbane. What've they got out there? A Taco Bell?

Re: San Francisco Doing Everything It Can To Drive Zynga And Twitter Away

#8

What makes Twitter and Zynga more deserving of tax breaks than any other company in the city? Honest question.

I don't think that was the point of the article. Rather, Arrington was commentating on the state of taxes in San Francisco, and he used Twitter and Zynga as an example of high-profile companies which were facing these taxes.

Re: San Francisco Doing Everything It Can To Drive Zynga And Twitter Away

#9

There are a bunch of Techchruch stories on right now, this one made the front page with no comments and only 6 votes?

That's not really unusual actually. It was submitted 31 minutes ago and has 6 up-votes. That's enough for just about any story submitted by anyone to get on the front page (unless there is a filter in place that requires more votes, like anything Julian Assange related).

3-4 up-votes in the first 10-15 minutes of submission is going to get your story in the middle of the front page. It only sucks that TechCrunch is popular here, IMO.

Re: San Francisco Doing Everything It Can To Drive Zynga And Twitter Away

#10

What makes Twitter and Zynga more deserving of tax breaks than any other company in the city? Honest question.

Two notes:

a) Not more deserving, but most companies in the city don't have to deal with the secondary tax mentioned. The 1.5 payroll taxes on gains from stock options is aimed at high-growth / go-public companies.

b) The article is asking why do this to ANY company in the city. Even in small biz an additional 1.5% in regular payroll taxes hurts.

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