Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 754 posts

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#41

Post by djrogers »

dmitrygr wrote: post #18
newbie578 wrote: post #3

Why doesn’t anyone want to address the elephant in the room, which is affordable housing? Why not convert vacant offices to apartments?

there are many political reasons. i'll list some logistical ones: fire codes? not enough bathrooms? lack of showers?

> not enough bathrooms? lack of showers?

Err, plumbers exist, and showers and bathrooms are added to commercial buildings all the time. Nobody is suggesting simply telling people to live in existing office space as-is - converting them would include accounting for these things.

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#42

Post by shreyansj »

bluGill wrote: post #17
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just move it to a smaller office somewhere else in the Bay Area.

Maybe, but is the rest of the Bay area enough better that they can trust they won't end up the same way in the near future.

Damn! Pretty sure that the rest of the Bay Area isn’t a dumpster fire either.

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#43

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

textech wrote: post #31

San Francisco is the 16th largest city by population and has a budget of around 14 billion which is like 6 or 7 times larger than many cities with much bigger population. This is just a badly run city and throwing more money at their problems isn't going to help them.

Even if you don't account for anything else, the high cost of living here translates to expensive city employees and expensive services. If you account for the "exchange rate" between San Francisco dollars and other city dollars, I wonder how the per capita spending stacks up. I expect it still doesn't look good, but I bet it looks a lot less ridiculous.

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#44

Post by gmadsen »

aeternum wrote: post #15
hawkoy wrote: post #6

From: https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/11/san-francis... > The tax will levy an extra 0.1% to 0.6% on gross receipts made in San Francisco for companies whose highest paid executive makes 100 times or more its median worker’s salary. The amount levied will increase in 0.1% brackets proportionally to the pay ratio. A company whose highest paid employee earns 200 times more than its median San Francisco wo…

I'd also be surprised if it brings in anywhere near the quoted amount since the SF supervisors have proven themselves incapable of considering second order effects such as companies contracting out their low-pay roles or simply leaving SF.

if it was profitable, it would have happened already.

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#45

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

newbie578 wrote: post #3

Why doesn’t anyone want to address the elephant in the room, which is affordable housing? Why not convert vacant offices to apartments?

In what way is nobody addressing the elephant in the room? That was a solid chunk of the propositions this year.

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#46

Post by dnautics »

hawkoy wrote: post #6

From: https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/11/san-francis... > The tax will levy an extra 0.1% to 0.6% on gross receipts made in San Francisco for companies whose highest paid executive makes 100 times or more its median worker’s salary. The amount levied will increase in 0.1% brackets proportionally to the pay ratio. A company whose highest paid employee earns 200 times more than its median San Francisco wo…

Seems like the solution is directly compensate your CEOs very little and outsource executive services to a third party company that aggregates CEO compensation as a "contracted entity". This company will mostly be paying CEOs, so its median employee salary will be relatively high.

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#47

Post by clhodapp »

bluGill wrote: post #17
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just move it to a smaller office somewhere else in the Bay Area.

Maybe, but is the rest of the Bay area enough better that they can trust they won't end up the same way in the near future.

Contra Costa is full of open space and I believe that many of the cities from Walnut Creek out would bend over backwards to pull in these types of jobs.

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#48

Post by gojomo »

ashtonkem wrote: post #25
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure folks will try to game this to get around it, I'm just curious how Lay off everyone making less than 200x the top earner. Move to remote workers where possible, outside contractors where not.

Fire low paid workers such as support staff and outsource that to staffing agencies. That’s the easiest way to game this number.

Ensure your outsourcing is not in SF. The outsourcing firm CEO pays themself whatever damn multiple they like. Voila, SF keeps all the cushy jobs they like, makes the working poor someone else's problem.

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#49

Post by reducesuffering »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #43
textech wrote: post #31

San Francisco is the 16th largest city by population and has a budget of around 14 billion which is like 6 or 7 times larger than many cities with much bigger population. This is just a badly run city and throwing more money at their problems isn't going to help them.

Even if you don't account for anything else, the high cost of living here translates to expensive city employees and expensive services. If you account for the "exchange rate" between San Francisco dollars and other city dollars, I wonder how the per capita spending stacks up. I expect it still doesn't look good, but I bet it looks a lot less ridiculous.

It is the city's fault the housing is expensive, which is the reason for the high cost of living.

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#50

Post by cobookman »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #12
umeshunni wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More likely, this will just result in businesses continuing to leave San Francisco. The pandemic has given most companies a good reason to do so already and my bet is on most of them not returning to their overpriced San Francisco headquarters when this is eventually over.

Or just move it to a smaller office somewhere else in the Bay Area.

They said SF, not SF Bay area. I'm certain the city of SF will be seeing a loss of jobs as they move to Oakland, East Bay, Peninsula and South Bay.
Post reply on HN