3 SF supervisors move to put tech tax on November ballot

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/3-SF-Supervisors-move-to-put-tech-tax-on-November-8330876.php

by ChrisBland • 10 years ago

24 29 10 years ago

protomyth4• 10 years ago

Looks like the answer to the classification system is:

"The measure identifies tech companies by the type of tax code they use under the Internal Revenue Service’s North American Industry Classification System. Companies classify themselves. They may face penalties if a government audit finds they are misidentifying themselves."

keville• 10 years ago

Thanks for this; am local and heard a bit about this tax yesterday but no news outlet seemed to think this detail was as relevant as we do.

protomyth4• 10 years ago

If I was a billionaire, I would create a news site called "Who, What, Why, and How" that answered all four questions in detail for every news item. No opinion (Lord knows you can get that elsewhere), just sourced facts and original documents. Pointers to previous articles via a timeline in the sidebar.

Ahh, to dream.....

strictnein• 10 years ago

I keep wondering if SF will be the Detroit of 2035.

xiphias• 10 years ago

At least they get rid of the housing problem if companies move away

superuser2• 10 years ago

SF's position is that they were just fine before the tech companies moved in and want to return to that state. I'm not sure this is inaccurate.

joeblow99992• 10 years ago

"Hey, let's inspire all these mega-successful employers in our city to move to Oakland!"

maxcan• 10 years ago

Sounds like a wonderful plan.. But then again, I'm a homeowner in Oakland.

tomschlick• 10 years ago

The only way they are going to get lower housing costs in SF is to tell the NIMBYs to go to hell and allow developers to build more housing.

illumin8• 10 years ago

It's completely crazy that their first approach is to tax tech companies. In other modern cities, you're allowed to build higher than 3 story buildings.

objclxt• 10 years ago

David Campos, who is proposing this tax, is against all house building. So good luck with that happening.

Campos's policies just defy rational thought. Last year he wanted to completely ban any housing construction in the Mission[1]. At the same time he's been actively campaigning and advocating for homelessness centers, and declaring a "state of emergency" for the homeless in SF[2].

I honestly can't reconcile how somebody can logically say "homelessness is terrible, we need to do something about it" followed by "we shouldn't build any houses". He wants to have his cake and eat it: complain about how the homeless are (in his words) "pushed into the Mission", and then refuse to allow any homes to be built that could potentially house them (via affordable housing requirements).

This is a man who believes[3] that the recent spate of fires in the mission is a deliberate arson campaign by landlords to evict their tenants, rather than the actual reason, which is many of the buildings in the Mission are a) made of wood, b) old, and c) lack modern safety systems like sprinklers and good alarm systems.

[1] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Campos-wants-moratoriu... [2]: http://abc7news.com/news/sf-supervisor-declares-state-of-eme... [3]: http://www.sfexaminer.com/why-is-the-mission-burning/

bko2• 10 years ago

Consider the following:

Imagine a government agency with only two tasks: (1) building statues of Benedict Arnold and (2) providing life-saving medications to children. If this agencys budget were cut, what would it do? It would cut back on the medications for children. Why? Because that would most likely get the budget cuts restored. If they cut back on building statues of Benedict Arnold, people might ask why they were building statues of Benedict Arnold in the first place. [0]

By fixing the problem by allowing more housing, the politician would be able to extract less resources and power from the population. Never let a crisis go to waste. Or perhaps I'm being overly cynical in characterizing the political process.

[0] http://www.heraldandtribune.com/oped/benedict-arnold-statues...

mc32• 10 years ago

Campoes seems to derive policymaking inspiration from Chavez. What I mean is he aims to please and fulfill his constituency not by addressing the root of a problem, but by summoning an issue's boogeyperson.

Unfortunately, they may feel good or vindicate people's frustrations but do little to actually work to alleviate the issue. This is more of that tact.

wwweston• 10 years ago

The general idea of taxes to support solutions to housing and infrastructure problems seems reasonable.

Why a tech-specific tax, though? Seems like a general one would avoid the problem of line drawing, avoid the problem of causing resentment in specific industries, and spread the burden out more generally.

Rapzid• 10 years ago

The tech companies are a good scapegoat for their own city planning failures.

lsaferite• 10 years ago

Seems like a good way for the city to get sued for singling out tech companies vs. doing it across the board.

JoeAltmaier• 10 years ago

Taxation is the art of plucking the goose so as to get the most feathers with the least squawking. It always involves singling out somebody.

bko2• 10 years ago

... but, in fact, San Francisco spends tremendous amounts of money on the problem. The city is allocating a record $241 million this fiscal year on homeless services, $84 million more than when Mayor Ed Lee took office in January 2011. But the city struggles to track exactly how all that money is being spent and whether it’s producing results. Eight city departments oversee at least 400 contracts to 76 private organizations, most of them nonprofits, that deal with homelessness.

Perhaps the city should re-think on the effectiveness of such programs. My biggest problem with the programs is that they are indirect and empower bureaucracies rather than the people they are purported to serve. For instance, housing subsidies are incredibly inefficient. The programs (in NYC at least) often provide a housing subsidy in a very popular neighborhood. So for instance, market rent could be $4,000 but subsidized rent would be $1,000 for a net transfer of $3,000. If the landlord had an option of paying < $3,000 and being able to rent the apartment at market rent, he would surely prefer that option. As an alternative, if that family received a direct $3,000 subsidy, the family would likely only use a portion of those funds to pay for better housing. Too many transfer programs that allocate a particular good have that problem and are highly inefficient. I doubt an extra $100 mm would provide any meaningful changes to many.

[0] http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-record...

housingthrow• 10 years ago

What this doesn't take into account is the fact that california doesn't require renters to list their income from alimony or child support. There are a ton of beautiful lofts in Santa Monica, for instance, which are over 100% of the maximum allowable income as a section 8 renter. This means that they were only built for rich divorcees or otherwise subsidized women.

joeblow99992• 10 years ago

"The city is allocating a record $241 million "

Sounds so effective and generous! I bet it's the best place in the world to be homeless no?

But then we read:

"Eight city departments oversee at least 400 contracts to 76 private organizations"

Ah... it's a bureaucrat job program, nothing more.

All that money not being spent on homeless people.

WalterSear2• 10 years ago

Furthermore, a staggering 1 in 4 homeless (29%) in SF were bussed in by the homeless service industry from other areas, and then ejected on to the streets for bad behaviour[0] or other reasons.

I can understand why each step of this process (bringing people to services, ejecting those that are unmanageable in order to maintain the order required to help the others. As a systematic process, however, it's obscene: it protects the industry while fanning the flames of the crisis, which, in turn, builds support for more funds for homeless non-profits.

[0]"Ten percent (10%) of respondents reported they were living out of state at the time they lost their housing. Nineteen percent (19%) reported they were living in another county in California. Six percent (6%) reported they were living in Alameda County at the time, 3% San Mateo, 2% Marin, 2% Contra Costa and 1% Santa Clara County."

http://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/sfgov.org.lhcb/files/2015%20San%...

dragonwriter3• 10 years ago

First, your link is broken, the correct link is: http://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Franc...

Second, while 71% did have homes previously in San Francisco, it does not follow that the remaining 29% "were bussed in by the homeless service industry from other areas". SF is known for having stronger support for the homeless, so homeless might well actively seek to travel to SF from other areas -- that's especially unsurprising for those from other Bay Area counties, which make up nearly half of the 29%. Second, there've been recurring cases of cities shipping out the homeless (either in general, or indigent mentally ill, in particular) to other jurisdictions -- including, often, SF. (This is them being bussed by someone, but not the homeless service industry.)

themartorana• 10 years ago

"Dubbed the tech tax, the proposed November ballot measure would impose a 1.5 percent payroll tax on technology companies. That would be a big shift. In 2012, 71 percent of San Francisco voters supported a measure to eliminate the city’s payroll tax and replace it with a gross receipts tax."

"Hey, Bob, did you know the voters of SF reset the payroll tax to zero? We can totally tax it now!"

WWLink• 10 years ago

So are they going to put the 1.5% tax on doctors, lawyers, and other rich business people that have always been able to live in SF?

Why is it when I the nerd finally get a job where I could afford to live in SF instead of some east bay suburb, they don't want me to live there and want to do everything in their power to keep me from doing so? XD

3 SF supervisors move to put tech tax on November ballot

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