61–70 of 754 posts
"Critics call the surcharge a blatant attempt at redistribution of wealth..." Um, yes? "Critics call John Travolta 'blatantly an actor, playing parts in movies.'"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This design seems really odd. Why target business and CEOs in particular? Why not just have a straightforward high progressive tax? It also seems like it will reward the practice of outsourcing lower-paid job functions, or discourage employers from hiring lower-paid workers generally. The whole thing seems designed as a punitive measure, without really thinking about what incentives it creates.
In my opinion, the state legislature should amend RTC 17041.5 to allow local income taxes, but only on rent, imputed rent, and capital gains within the city. Rents are the thing that local governments can tax without distorting the market.
As for this performative CEO tax, I think that the only positive effect that it will have, if any, would be to raise awareness of an issue whose solution has to come at the national and state level.
SF has so much tax revenue, but where is it spent?
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.
"Critics call the surcharge a blatant attempt at redistribution of wealth..." Um, yes? "Critics call John Travolta 'blatantly an actor, playing parts in movies.'"
I hate to say it, but when you do things like this to Big Business TM it DOES have trickle down effects that negatively affect small business owners and business services alike.
So basically this is targeting companies whose CEOs make over $50M a year, which is basically Twitter, Pinterest, Google, Facebook, Uber and a few others that actually have an office in San Francisco.
And I'm sure Google and Facebook et. al will fight them over how much money they "make" in San Francisco.
> He dismisses fears that the surcharge will drive companies out of the city, saying the tax is modest in comparison to the cost of moving a business. Perhaps - but it will discourage new businesses from locating there, and new businesses are the future.
Let me weigh the pros/cons here: Pros: lots of funding, lots of experienced employees who have taken companies from seed to IPO, probably a higher chance than some other areas to go from well off to ridiculously rich Cons: I get taxed more if I start making 200x what the average employee in my company makes. Can you see how no one would care unless they're 100% sure they're gonna be making 200x what their average emp…
Sounds like business will be booming for temp agencies as well as janitorial and facilities maintenance contractors. Whatever the net positive here is wholly negated by the number of stable long term jobs that are going to go away and be replaced by whoever the body shop chooses to send that day. Working for these middle men really sucks compared to working for whoever the service is being provided for (and I say tha…
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.
I am aware that I am a part of the problem: my wife and I are white, yuppie, dink tech workers. :)
These issues are complex.
I voted yes on Proposition L: the tax is quite small and I think the tech firms are unlikely to leave, meanwhile SF can get more taxes from them (many of them were historically given tax breaks, like Twitter, to move into the mid-market area). If they do leave, I don't see that as a bad thing.
Meanwhile socioeconomic disparity is an oozing sore in San Francisco, we have billionaires rubbing elbows with homeless people every day. Nationally, we've had round after round of tax cuts for the wealthiest, if SF wants to tax excessive income disparity, I say, fair enough.