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Seattle passes smaller ‘head tax’ on big companies after impassioned debate

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Re: Seattle passes smaller ‘head tax’ on big companies after impassioned debate

#11

Post by propman »

I'm fiscally conservative and I don't mind the tax, it's just very poorly planned. $20M in revenue for businesses is not much. It's a regressive tax, and it is appropriated to homelessness which the city has done a very poor job of dealing with. Money will no doubt be wasted.

I do support a more fair tax in Bay Area that goes directly to transportation and infrastructure improvement

Re: Seattle passes smaller ‘head tax’ on big companies after impassioned debate

#14

Post by helianer »

matte_black wrote: post #10

How’re is this tax supposed to fix or ease homelessness? Several years ago, some friends were looking to purchase a starter home in Seattle, maybe for $250k or so. But they had such a killer deal on rent, they opted to wait a few more years, to save up more money . Well, in the next few years that dream quickly slipped through their fingers. Now you have to pay upwards of $500k just to get some as-is teardown that yo…

Well, taxing something means you’ll usually get less of it, so I guess it’ll reduce demand on housing (probably not what they want since it hurts the economy in other ways). If the money goes to building for those in need it could help a bit.

The only thing that will really help over the long term is building even more apartments.

Re: Seattle passes smaller ‘head tax’ on big companies after impassioned debate

#15

Post by stuntkite »

I agree that this tax probably won't fix the homelessness problem. Whatever has happened to Seattle is much deeper then just homelessness. Amazon and the like have ravaged the city of it's ability to provide functional housing even to service and support workers.

I know this is happening in every city, but it's very pronounced in Seattle. The city shuts down at 9PM because no one lives there and then the homeless spill over into the empty well scrubbed streets.

It's soul has been sucked out and been replaced with techno culture. A weird head tax is a reasonable ding for an exasperated set of natives, but someone has to find a way to balance these concerns. Or not... I shudder to think of what the bay, Seattle, Austin, Denver, Boston, etc are going to become without all the people that make up a city that aren't just there to get their next rung up on the way to be CTO for their own gig app.

Re: Seattle passes smaller ‘head tax’ on big companies after impassioned debate

#16

Post by foolfoolz »

> City of Seattle revenues have grown dramatically from $2.8B in 2010 to $4.2B in 2017, and they will be even higher in 2018. This revenue increase far outpaces the Seattle population increase over the same time period. The city does not have a revenue problem – it has a spending efficiency problem

Re: Seattle passes smaller ‘head tax’ on big companies after impassioned debate

#18

Post by foota »

propman wrote: post #11

I'm fiscally conservative and I don't mind the tax, it's just very poorly planned. $20M in revenue for businesses is not much. It's a regressive tax, and it is appropriated to homelessness which the city has done a very poor job of dealing with. Money will no doubt be wasted. I do support a more fair tax in Bay Area that goes directly to transportation and infrastructure improvement

It's only regressive if lower-sh income workers are impacted by the changes, and I'm not sure this will be the case since wages are in theory derived from the labor market, and this tax will only affect a minority of jobs.

Re: Seattle passes smaller ‘head tax’ on big companies after impassioned debate

#19

Post by darkengine »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #12
pteredactyl wrote: post #6

Sad to watch SF and SEA be the cause of their own slow-motion downfall.

Where exactly do you expect business to go?

In the case of Seattle, Kirkland and Bellevue are host to quite a few small and large tech companies already. The office space is plentiful and cheap on this side of Lake Washington, and there is less of a worry of being hit with poorly planned taxes and regulations that Seattle is, at this point, infamous for enacting.

With the way the housing market is going, and the upcoming King County property tax hike, I wouldn't be surprised if tech workers started creeping out into Snohomish County and favoring jobs on the Eastside instead of Seattle due to traffic.

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