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

latimes.com

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

#201

Post by vlovich123 »

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #190
Alupis wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And/Or move their companies too. Particularly all the "tech startups" that think they don't need physical office buildings anymore. For a lot of companies, SF is becoming difficult to justify. Well-intended ideas, not fully thought out, leading to unintended consequences... nothing really new for SF.

getting tech out of SF would actually do a lot of people good. I've worked at countless software companies and always wondered why the companies had to be located in the most expensive city in the US.

Isn’t it the most expensive city because of all the tech workers? Wherever you get a congregation you’ll get that effect (as Austin and Colorado are finding out), and companies generally start where workers are available (that‘a why film and entertainment industries are still largely is in LA, New York, London even if they film around the world)

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

#202

Post by mrits »

bambax wrote: post #175
offtop5 wrote: post #165

Feels like a great way to encourage companies to leave the state. I left California many years ago. Every single part of my life is much better. Fiscally , romantically, mentally. SF over values how essential location is. With Covid it's clear remote work is the future, base the company out of Delaware and go full remote

This is the eternal objection to measures like this. But if every city and every state implement this, where will they go? And even if not, will they actually move? Will companies move? Time will tell but it seems very doubtful.

Most cities are giving incentives to grow. The exact opposite of what SF is doing.

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

#203

Post by stvswn »

d33lio wrote: post #73
spinningslate wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that was my reaction too. I don't live in the US, so this is an honest question. Most of the comments here are disparaging about the policy. Is that because: 1. you agree with the principle of addressing wealth polarisation, but don't agree with tax as the mechanism? (in general or the proposed model specifically) 2. you don't agree that increasing wealth polarisation needs to be stopped/reversed? 3. something else?…

Most motivated people with the means to scrape enough cash together to even try to start something dislike legislation and the idea of "redistribution" because usually these plans raise far less money than politicians think, but moreover the politicians coming up with these plans have already proven they have no clue how to spend taxpayer dollars. To be frank, as a supporter of capitalism - I generally support the no…

I don't really agree with you characterization of where our taxes go -- federally, 64% of the government budget is related to mandatory spending, almost all of which is social security, medicare, and medicaid.

15% of the budget goes to the military. That makes the U.S. the largest military spender in the world.

15% of the budget may seem expensive, but it's not fair to compare it to Western Europe. NATO is a big reason why western europe does not need to spend more on their own defense.

I believe that's a good thing - it's in the United States' best interest to avoid rearmament in Europe, and Europe has never been at (relative) peace for so long as it has been since the emergence of the post-WWII consensus -- but they do in fact have more money for more non-defense discretionary spending than we do as a result. The Euro area spends 1.4% of GDP on military spending while being protected by an umbrella of security provided by the U.S., which spends 3.7% of GDP on the military.

Again, I think this is good for the U.S., we benefit from the liberal world order that we enforce, but I think it has to be taken into context when the EU is described as a great example of how to spend tax money on wise social programs.

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

#204

Post by shuckles »

bradlys wrote: post #195
shuckles wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tax doesn't care about where the CEO lives. It applies to any company that does business in San Francisco which has a CEO that meets the criteria.

And to be clear, it's only on business that is done in San Francisco . Essentially, it's going to turn into a sales tax for SF. > 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 empl…

The interesting question, in my opinion, is whether Stripe's revenue from other San Francisco companies is considered gross receipts within the city or someplace in Delaware or Ireland.

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

#205

Post by stevehawk »

derision wrote: post #196
jefftk wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

highest paid executive makes 100 times or more its median worker’s salary

2 months from now: nation's first executiveless company

isn't that what Valve pretends to be?

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

#206

Post by tlogan »

offtop5 wrote: post #165

Feels like a great way to encourage companies to leave the state. I left California many years ago. Every single part of my life is much better. Fiscally , romantically, mentally. SF over values how essential location is. With Covid it's clear remote work is the future, base the company out of Delaware and go full remote

This kind of taxes are easily gamed (outsource low paid employees, etc.). It might actually be good for a big business because all ‘normal’ employees will be via temp agencies.

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

#207

Post by throwaway2245 »

cody3222 wrote: post #121

This raises some interesting questions / side effects: 1) Companies may now have a direct incentive to have their lowest income earners be outsourced/contracted out to boost the median pay amount. 2) It was smart of them to include compensation such as stock options. However if a city starts to expect this income, it will all go away in recessions when CEO's stock options are not valuable. ie more money to the city i…

> Companies may now have a direct incentive to have their lowest income earners be outsourced/contracted

The median was presumably chosen because it's relatively harder to shift in this way. Although this depends on the exact pay distribution of your company, you'd expect getting rid of people from the bottom to change the median person but not typically change the median value.

(This is also a mature enough problem that I'd expect other provision in the law to prevent this - are we sure it doesn't include outsourced workforce pay?)

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

#209

Post by mrits »

derision wrote: post #196
jefftk wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

highest paid executive makes 100 times or more its median worker’s salary

2 months from now: nation's first executiveless company

The only executive is the CEO's mother making $50K/year

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

#210

Post by xg15 »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #188

It will work out well fiscally because giant companies will suck it up and pay, but it looks like a bad strategy from a forward-looking point of view. You want to incentivize future growth too, and you want to make sure that 20 years down the line, you have the new FAANGs of the world giving you millions in tax dollars, because history has shown that the largest of companies can eventually die out, and tech is full o…

So they show do nothing about today's inequality because this will get them more taxes in 20 years? (Unless someone makes the same point 20 years in that they should better wait another 20 years)
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