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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

#41

Post by keyle »

timr wrote: post #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 t…

You got my heart pumping when you said Brisbane. I thought you meant Brisbane, Australia.

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

#42

Post by ilovecomputers »

usaar333 wrote: post #28
timr wrote: post #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 t…

Plenty of companies are located in the far more boring Silicon Valley. And assuming they are talking about Sierra Point, a place close to a freeway and caltrain. Doubtful it'll be a problem. :)

I'll be honest, if Twitter moved to a place like Cypress Creek, I think their employees will be more than happy to move.

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

#43

Post by fab13n »

If I understand correctly, all this fuss is about a 1.5% tax on wages. If so, it seems nonsensical: settling in the Silicon Valley costs much more than that, yet companies still prefer to settle there than in the rust belt or in Europe. There is a significant advantage in being in the SF area, and companies already evaluate this advantage to much, much more than 1.5% of payroll.

Now I understand that big companies try to pretend otherwise, so that they can scare the city and save these 1.5% for themselves, but don't take this for anything other than BS.

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

#44

Post by binspace »

kscaldef wrote: post #31
binspace wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't appreciate the extravagant waste and the entitlement of the state to impose it's will on the people. With our taxes, we also support bailouts, wars, and other profiteering of those in control. Also, these institutions are basically monopolies, where the people in charge are not really accountable to run them efficiently or effectively. Does giving the government more money make the government more effective?

I wasn't aware of the wars or bailouts the city of San Francisco has run. Could you elaborate?

Nice straw man. The originating subject was on taxes (since it takes more than a city to provide all of those services), not only SF taxes :-)

San Francisco residents live in the United States of America. The United States of America imposes federal taxes. Federal taxes have been used to fund wars and bailouts of various failed businesses.

Of course, no real city has the authority to have a military. The city does have a police force, which often acts in ways that do not better the lives of SF residents (parking tickets for example).

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

#45

Post by crux_ »

fleitz wrote: post #37
cloudwalking wrote: post #24

I appreciate it when people pay taxes because I like public transportation, fire safety, paved roads, bridges, public schools, police officers, health inspectors, safety inspectors, public parks, libraries, clean air, (relatively) fair corporations, airports, hospitals, court systems, electricity, vehicle regulation, elections, veteran associations, child support, public television... San Francisco is a pretty nice p…

public transportation? I live in Vancouver and recently flew in to SFO. Being from Vancouver I thought I know I'll save time and money and just take the subway in. BART is fucking disgusting and I couldn't sit down on the train for fear of picking up god knows what. In Vancouver if you start a startup and hire someone under 30 with a degree the gov't will pay you the first $15/hour of their salary, the rest you can a…

If you include the portion of your federal & provincial taxes that are then granted/budgeted to the city, I bet the tax you're paying "to the city" is a lot higher than you think it is, and per-capita are probably on par with SF.

Also, unrelated question: How much harder is it for a 31-year-old to find work?

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

#46

Post by jackowayed »

fab13n wrote: post #43

If I understand correctly, all this fuss is about a 1.5% tax on wages. If so, it seems nonsensical: settling in the Silicon Valley costs much more than that, yet companies still prefer to settle there than in the rust belt or in Europe. There is a significant advantage in being in the SF area, and companies already evaluate this advantage to much, much more than 1.5% of payroll. Now I understand that big companies tr…

It's a 1.5% tax on wages and stock gains. They pay the 1.5% on wages already and are fine with it. They just don't want a massive tax bill when they go public for all of the stock they gave to employees.

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

#47

Post by [deleted] »

pg wrote: post #12
guywithabike wrote: post #3

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

As it says in the article, the problem is that the law covers not just salary but employees' stock gains as well. Twitter and Zynga uncomplainingly pay payroll tax on salaries like other companies, but the growth in their valuation combined with the fact that lots of employees get stock means that if the law were enforced, Twitter and Zynga would be hit with huge extra bills that other companies aren't.

[deleted]

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

#48

Post by davidw »

keyle wrote: post #41
timr wrote: post #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 t…

You got my heart pumping when you said Brisbane. I thought you meant Brisbane, Australia.

If it's any consolation, there are plenty of "gum" (eucalyptus) trees in Brisbane, California, too.

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

#49

Post by pg »

crux_ wrote: post #39
pg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it says in the article, the problem is that the law covers not just salary but employees' stock gains as well. Twitter and Zynga uncomplainingly pay payroll tax on salaries like other companies, but the growth in their valuation combined with the fact that lots of employees get stock means that if the law were enforced, Twitter and Zynga would be hit with huge extra bills that other companies aren't.

This is probably because other companies either aren't in SF, or aren't winning the Startup Lottery. You yourself have long advocated that the former greatly increases your chances of the latter. Now, it's late, so correct me if I'm wrong in my thinking here: If twitter magically gained $3 billion in additional valuation, and all employees cashed in all their options, all at once, it would result in a "huge" tax bill…

Actually I've never said that startups do better in SF specifically, but rather the Bay Area. This problem is limited to the city.

The difference between the two cases is that the employees are being taxed out of money they have (if they exercise and sell) whereas the company is being taxed based not on revenues but on the appreciation of its stock. So a company whose valuation shot up in advance of anticipated revenues could find itself with a bill it had no money to pay.

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

#50

Post by bgentry »

jackowayed wrote: post #46
fab13n wrote: post #43

If I understand correctly, all this fuss is about a 1.5% tax on wages. If so, it seems nonsensical: settling in the Silicon Valley costs much more than that, yet companies still prefer to settle there than in the rust belt or in Europe. There is a significant advantage in being in the SF area, and companies already evaluate this advantage to much, much more than 1.5% of payroll. Now I understand that big companies tr…

It's a 1.5% tax on wages and stock gains . They pay the 1.5% on wages already and are fine with it. They just don't want a massive tax bill when they go public for all of the stock they gave to employees.

According to one of the previous articles on this subject, this provision actually requires companies to pay taxes on their employees' options based on the company's valuation, even if those employees aren't even able to sell those shares.

The example I remember was that if a company raised a bunch of money at a ~$1B valuation but was later acquired for a significantly smaller sum, they would have already paid taxes on their employees' stock option gains at the ~$1B valuation based on the increase in perceived value of their shares at the time they raised money.

Edit: what I said above is in line with what pg said in his comments here:

The difference between the two cases is that the employees are being taxed out of money they have (if they exercise and sell) whereas the company is being taxed based not on revenues but on the appreciation of its stock. So a company whose valuation shot up in advance of anticipated revenues could find itself with a bill it had no money to pay.

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