San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses • Hacker News Board

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

#531

Post by runarberg » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 3:15 AM UTC

opportune wrote: post #519

ransom1538 wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's insane to me that the city with so many rich people and incredibly valuable companies is such a mess, your telling me that a small city with an incredibly wealthy population can't figure out how to keep the tenderloin from being full of tents and open drug use? Or get some form of functioning public transit? Pretty pathetic." SF resident for 15 years until I left. I walked around and talked to homeless. From th…

Just as an aside, I don't know the stats for SF, but in Seattle the "invisible" homeless outnumbered the street-homeless 2:1. Street-homeless people tend to cause the most problems and put the most strain on the system, but there are a lot more people sleeping in cars, shelters, temporary housing, and couchsurfing, who are still homeless and need help. I honestly think SF and Seattle need to be tougher on the street-…

Its funny you should say this, I have a sibling comment providing an anecdote about my (non obnoxious) [generally perceived] homelessness in San Francisco, while currently living in Seattle (well Vashon Island). Generally I get the a little lacking vibe in Seattle then San Francisco. Never having lived without a house in Seattle I feel like it would be similar except for the superior weather in San Francisco. I also doubt that I would be able to find as welcoming neighbors in Seattle as I did in San Francisco (although that is just a speculation).

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

#532

Post by nogabebop23 » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 3:20 AM UTC

"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."

...until it's not. Amazon has shown us there are lots of attractive jurisdictions ready to shower companies with tax incentives to relocate; SF feels like a city that's enjoyed the benefits of many factors not directly of their making and they could be in for a strict reckoning. We will see...

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

#533

Post by Zhenya » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 3:20 AM UTC

stainforth wrote: post #295

dgoldstein0 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The measure wasn't to tax based on CEO pay. It was based on the highest paid managerial employee. So title doesn't matter.

Just want to comment that thank god we can actually build rules that can't be loopholed.

All new executives are now hired as LLCs

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

#534

Post by nogabebop23 » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 3:22 AM UTC

opportune wrote: post #516

mrits wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always hear bay area friends tell me how it's not that bad there if you have room mates. Mean while the engineers here in their 30s are collecting income from their 3rd rental property already.

I know lots of people under 30 in the Bay Area who could have much more than 3 rental properties if they wanted to. Especially outside of the bay area. It's just that living with roommates is pretty frugal, and before the pandemic, it was a good way to save an extra $10k a year living in a more central location. Every single person I know who is a bay area SWE makes enough to afford renting a 1bed apartment in a good…

>> makes enough to afford renting a 1bed apartment in a good area

In most cities in the US this is not the definition of wealthy or even well off. living with roommates to save 10K a year does sound like one step above poverty.

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

#535

Post by rmk » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 3:25 AM UTC

sroussey wrote: post #528

vondur wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF has a $360 million dollar a year budget for addressing the homeless situation. I'm not sure what funding they may also get in addition from the County and State Level.

It was upped to about $600m. Good luck getting an audit.

Okay, that is something on the order of $10,000 per person if there's a homeless population of 60,000 people. I doubt if SF has such a large homeless population.

Does this $600 million cover things like Churches sheltering the homeless, pantries, and such? Or is it in addition to the the $600 million? Something is very rotten here.

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

#536

Post by jhj » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 3:27 AM UTC

jm_l wrote: post #376

GhostVII wrote: post #309

San Francisco's solution to everything seems to be to just keep raising taxes, and throwing money at things which don't work. At some point you have to realize that more money isn't always the solution, you actually have to fix your beurocracy. It's insane to me that the city with so many rich people and incredibly valuable companies is such a mess, your telling me that a small city with an incredibly wealthy populat…

I think this is a common line of thinking that doesn't actually reflect the reality of how much the city is spending per year. SF's spending in 2019 was 12b dollars (roughly $12,000 per resident). Of that, 1.6b went to MTA ($1600 per resident, or 13% of total spending) and 360m went to addressing homelessness ($360 per resident, or 3% of total spending) Comparatively, SF's GDP was 500b (500,000 per resident). To conc…

500 billion is substantially off, that figure is not for San Francisco the city, it's for the combined SF-Oakland-Hayward, CA metropolitan statistical area, which has a total population of around 4.7 million people.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP41860

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

#537

Post by primitivesuave » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 3:29 AM UTC

jm_l wrote: post #416

primitivesuave wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One number you're missing there is the total homeless population estimated in 2019 to be around 8000 people [1], which works out to around $45k per homeless resident. 1. https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDRep...

Yes the point-in-time count is 8000, but a lot of homelessness services go to preventing people who are on the edge of homelessness. If you use the estimate here ( https://sf.curbed.com/2019/11/20/20973811/sf-homeless-count-... ) that 18,000 people are homeless at some time in a given year then the figure goes down to 20,000 per homeless. Also consider that an additional estimated 9,500 each year would be homeless if…

This is a really good point, thank you for providing the links!

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

#538

Post by _prototype_ » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 3:30 AM UTC

bhupy wrote: post #429

rcpt wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily a San Franciscan figured it all out over one hundred years ago so we don't have to wonder about this: > THE GREAT PROBLEM IS SOLVED. We are able to explain social phenomena that have appalled philanthropists and perplexed statesmen all over the civilized world. We have found the reason why wages constantly tend to a minimum, giving but a bare living, despite increase in productive power: > As productive power…

A pet crusade of mine: California can pass a 100% (or close to that) land appreciation tax (capital gains tax on land), and that wouldn't violate Prop 13. High land appreciation taxes are essentially indistinguishable from Georgist LVT. China taxes land appreciation between 30-60%.

Wait are you seriously suggesting we adopt a taxation policy the CCP utilizes? Did I miss something?

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

#539

Post by _prototype_ » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 3:31 AM UTC

hiphipjorge wrote: post #488

s3r3nity wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China taxes land appreciation between 30-60%. If you want support for your causes in the US, you probably don’t want to compare it to a communist regime that scares the crap out of people. Unless this was sarcastic...?

China does absolutely scare the crap out of both it’s own people and people abroad, but economically it’s clear they’ve done a lot of things right over the last 40 years. The US could learn a thing or two from the communists when it comes to Capitalism.

Yikes

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

#540

Post by conanbatt » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 3:32 AM UTC

smolder wrote: post #75

conanbatt wrote: post #55

"saying the tax is modest in comparison to the cost of moving a business." Basically admitting that the thought process is charging as much taxes as you can possible get away with.

I agree they shouldn't be seeking to grow their budget endlessly. Why do we accept that behavior from businesses? IME, they often effectively ruin their own products and do harm to society by attempting to extract the maximum benefit from market position. It seems that in many people's opinions they're just behaving as they should.

The business is making money by a voluntary exchange: the tax is not a voluntary contribution. Maximizing lack of consent is not the same as maximizing voluntary exchanges.