SF and Cali in general just love to chase businesses out of their state.
San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses
281–290 of 754 posts
Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses
#282It 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…
I agree companies will just suck it up and pay it if they want to be in SF. But I don't think it will disincentive new companies starting out. They have a hundred other concerns more important than how the CEO will be taxed if they one day become huge and the CEO has extremely high compensation. It won't even factor into the decision of where to locate the company. Also, you should notice most highly compensated CEOs…
> Simple capital gains or dividends are the favourite forms of compensation for founders.
The new law includes equity comp in the calculation. Not sure how or if they'll amortize founder equity over many years, though; they may just consider the value in the year it's granted or the year it vests.
Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
This assumes that the performance of companies is driven by the CEO much more than the employees. If the Bay Area has great FANG companies because of talented workforce here, then CEOs will gladly take a pay cut to be able to employ the best workers.
Yep. Founders would likely be on the board and just give themselves different titles from CEO if they really cared, so it shouldn't impact startups.
The measure wasn't to tax based on CEO pay. It was based on the highest paid managerial employee. So title doesn't matter.
Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses
#284Every CEO will just move out of San Francisco city limits... This doesn't really do anything.
Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses
#285Why do these discussions always revolve around the collection of taxes instead of how the taxes will be used? Would anyone be complaining if they knew the taxes would be more beneficial? Conversely, wouldn't we reject these new taxes if we knew they weren't going to be a greater benefit? Does anyone even know how the taxes will be used?
This is such a good point. It's as if the argument is that more taxes is good no matter what rather than knowing what/why you're taxing in the first place.
Yes exactly, it's like everyone is arguing past each other with different assumptions about how taxes will be used. Take this quote from the article:
> “We need the wealth that has been generated in the city to be shared more broadly with workers and residents”
This person seems to assume the taxes will be shared with the workers and residents. Would they still support these taxes if that were not the case?
Others (in this discussion) seem to think the taxes will be thrown at things that don't benefit the city. Maybe so? Would they be more supportive if they knew it was for something they believed in?
Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses
#286It 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…
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Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses
#287"Critics call the surcharge a blatant attempt at redistribution of wealth..." Um, yes? "Critics call John Travolta 'blatantly an actor, playing parts in movies.'"
Taking away from productive people, and giving to unproductive people is not a recipe for success.
Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses
#288For people who point out that this incentivizes companies to leave San Francisco, that's probably not a coincidence. Many SF politicians see tech as the enemy and would be happy to see companies go elsewhere.
Based on the article, they hate finance even more (at 23%, versus 17% for tech).
Pissing off both of those industries doesn't seem like the smartest approach when they have 12 million sq. ft. of unused office space [0].
I think SF's pain is only beginning.
[0] - https://socketsite.com/archives/2020/10/nearly-12-million-sq...
Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses
#289Earlier 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?…
I find it interesting that you frame income inequality as "wealth polarisation." Are you implying a bimodal distribution of some sort? My personal theory of "inequality" is that it isn't necessarily a bad thing. A distribution of income levels will always have a long right tail as you cannot make negative income but there is no theoretical limit to the maximum income. If all wages grow by the same relative amount, yo…
Thanks for the comment. One point to clarify on my post:
> I find it interesting that you frame income inequality as "wealth polarisation." Are you implying a bimodal distribution of some sort?
I wasn't intending to equate distribution and polarisation. By the latter, I meant the steady shift of wealth to a smaller population who have become progressively wealthier. While, at the other end, the majority have beome comparatively less wealthy compared to equivalent social cohorts over time.
Perhaps more succinctly, it's the _change_ in distribution, not the _presence_ of a distribution.
I'm no economist and I know there are a variety of opinions on distribution, but I understand there's reasonable agreement that globalisation has increased polarisation [0].
Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses
#290This is a strange bill. It targets companies based on the delta between CEO compensation and median worker.
This means companies that have larger workforces - mostly determined by industry - are less likely to set up shop in San Francisco. Of those that do, they are strongly incentivized to use contractors instead of employees to ensure the salary gap is within reason.
In other words this just created an arbitrary set of incentives for companies to adjust their behavior, likely to the detriment of non-high income workers in the city.