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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

#101

Post by crux_ »

pg wrote: post #99
jasonkester wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem like a satisfactory answer to the question. It essentially translates to "they deserve to get special treatment because they're rich." Why should a company with lots of tax gains not have to pay the same taxes on them as the company next door? Certainly they were familiar with the tax code and its consequences when they set up shop in that city. The whole article reads me as simply "big successful c…

As I explain here, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2331182 the problem that the companies the law applies to aren't necessarily rich; they're not being taxed on their revenues, but on their valuations, which reflect investors' hopes about their future revenues. So they're effectively being asked now for money they don't have yet. But in any case it would not be "special treatment" to exempt them; this is one of t…

You're splitting hairs. A company whose valuation rises enough for this to become an issue is very rich in a very real sense.

Second, most events that would cause such a huge rise in valuation are accompanied by a huge influx of cash. There may be some tiny edge cases, but a gangbusters IPO ain't one. The bill is due once a year, and imagining a company being without the cash for it stretches my imagination to the breaking point.

Third, "being asked now for money they don't have yet" is the entire reason the company is selling equity in the first place. They can surely budget for an extra 0.015 of an already proportionally tiny amount.

Fourth, they aren't taxed on valuations but on, to coin a term, their employees' realized compensation. This may be based on valuation, but justifiably so, since compensation is compensation.

Hell, a company with bottomless greed and a deep commitment to nickle & diming could probably find a way write the tax bill into their options contracts.

Fifth, the weird part of the law is that it is structured as a payroll tax rather than as an income, capital gains, or wealth tax.

Otherwise it appears to be a very honest attempt to fairly tax different forms of compensation in a non-regressive way.

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

#102

Post by joelandren »

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…

And yet you can't create a Zynga or a Twitter. Hmmmm.

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

#103

Post by cpeterso »

guelo wrote: post #90
staycek wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.baycitizen.org/transportation/interactive/intimat... I would rethink that decision.

Oh please. There are bacteria everywhere, or do they dip those Vancouver trains in Lysol everyday?

The (biggest) problem is that BART has cloth seats, which are absorbant and more difficult to clean than plastic seats.

btw, the cloth BART seats pictured in that article are some of the cleanest I've seen. I ride BART every day. Most seats are collapsing, ripped, and filthy.

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

#104

Post by cpeterso »

binspace wrote: post #75

Twitter should move to Oakland :-)

Oakland could has so much going for it, yet the city continues to nosedive. Oakland is:

  * centrally located to SF, SJ, and the rest of the Easy Bay.
  * cheaper than SF or SJ (unless you live in the Hills)
  * an international airport.
  * an international shipping port.
  * convenient BART access from SF and the East Bay
  * not far from UC Berkeley.
  * (somewhat) cleaner than SF.
Full disclosure: I live in Oakland, but plan to move. I was bullish on Oakland, but not its city government.

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

#105

Post by cpeterso »

jpadkins wrote: post #95
dools wrote: post #71

The only problem here is that the U.S has completely different tax laws for each state. If everyone wasn't so fanatical about state's rights it would be far more difficult for companies to jump ship in order to evade tax, and far less administrative burden caused by tax compliance issues.

yes, lets take away choice of government so the empire can rule effectively. /s Competing jurisdictions is a check on corruption.

I like to think of the states as "regulatory laboratories". In an ideal world, states would learn from their neighbors' regulatory successes and failures.

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

#106

Post by alnayyir »

Stormbringer wrote: post #86
davidw wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, there aren't any donut shops in Queensland anymore either. They all got washed away by the recent epic storm that made Katrina look like a fourth grade spitball contest.† †This is of course, patently false. Oh sure, the storm was bigger and nastier, but if you do insist on building your city below sea level, then route crucial funds from the Army Corps of Engineers who are supposed to keep the levees strong, to…

Politics not welcome, caustic attitudes even less so.

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

#107

Post by Stormbringer »

alnayyir wrote: post #106
Stormbringer wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there aren't any donut shops in Queensland anymore either. They all got washed away by the recent epic storm that made Katrina look like a fourth grade spitball contest.† †This is of course, patently false. Oh sure, the storm was bigger and nastier, but if you do insist on building your city below sea level, then route crucial funds from the Army Corps of Engineers who are supposed to keep the levees strong, to…

Politics not welcome, caustic attitudes even less so.

Anyone marking me down who doesn't have friends and family in a disaster area, can go die in a fire.

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

#108

Post by alnayyir »

Stormbringer wrote: post #107
alnayyir wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politics not welcome, caustic attitudes even less so.

Anyone marking me down who doesn't have friends and family in a disaster area, can go die in a fire.

That's so completely besides the point that I feel I should be sending a quote with context to somebody compiling a rhetoritician's dictionary.

Let me help you, since you are being so pointedly blind to your own offensiveness. (Which only hurts your ability to be pithy and forceful, by the way.)

This is a conversation about tax breaks and municipalities, in this case, the subjects involve SF and some startups.

This particular thread was an aside about Australia, because of the name "Brisbane".

You derailed it into a micro-rant about a recent tragedy, and then threw in an even less relevant slam on the US.

I'm not the most popular person here on HN. I've gotten into it with Justin of Justin.tv before because I was calling out some of the more offensive startup hysteria/bullshit.

You are something else entirely. You're not an iconoclast.

You are the 25 year old whose parents died when he was 2 y/o and won't shut up about it at the bar.

Have yourself a coke, a smile, and shut the fuck up.

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