Seattle's Crusade Against "The Rich": $47 million Head Tax is repealed a month after it was signed

$275/year is next to nothing. As in the article it's 26c an hour. Cry me a river big business earning > $20 million a year.

Typical leftist mentality.

You're aware that someone else's company funds isn't yours to spend, correct?

No new business is going to move to Seattle Washington as a result of this new tax. I suspect many local businesses will start to explore options elsewhere.

Within five years, I predict that Seattle Washington will suffer form more divestment events then Los Angeles County (The current record holder).
 
I can't wait to see how this turns out. The homeless problem is getting out of control. While the city is talking about new sports arenas and teams. ( talk about corporate welfare)

Also if this slows the growth of Amazon and Seattle its kind of a good i think. I think Seattle is growing too fast. House prices are out of control and I feel are leading to a bubble that will burst. I say this as someone who builds houses for a living, so I do love all the business but I've seen this before and almost everyone in the trades lost their job.
 
It's funny seeing lower class people do the bidding of these extremely wealthy fucks as if they can relate to them or will ever be on the level to where this tax hurts them too. They're actually voting against their own interests- it's incredible how the elite class manages to manipulate lower classes into eating their own.
The tax will be passed to the consumer in the cost of goods and services. Yeah, they really got to the mean richies.
So, are the little guys fighting for the big stealer rich, or are the devil corporations fighting for the little guys by trying to keep prices in check?
try doing a quick study on how much of the price of any widget is tax, from raw material to consumer. It's staggering.
 
Analysis: the Seattle-Amazon tax fight is a lose-lose for everyone
by Dylan Byers @CNNMoney May 15, 2018

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The war that pitted Seattle's City Council against Amazon, Starbucks and other businesses over homelessness has ended in a lose-lose-lose draw. It could go down as one of the biggest fiascos in the city's history as a leader of progressive policy, Seattle business and political leaders tell me.

The Council voted 9-to-0 to pass a compromise tax that will charge businesses $275 per-employee per year, instead of the $540 per employee figure initially proposed. Voter surveys show Seattle residents were overwhelmingly opposed to both proposals.

The city of Seattle lost because it failed to articulate a well-thought out strategy for dealing with homelessness; passed a watered-down bill that alienated the business community; and only won half as much revenue as it said it needed.

Amazon and big business lost because they fought the Council with threats and criticism rather than seizing the opportunity to take the lead on an issue that it has demonstrated a commitment to elsewhere.

The nearly 12,000 homeless people living in King County lost because Seattle and Amazon got in a pissing match.

This could have been avoided, business and political leaders in Seattle tell me.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan could have brought the City Council together with Amazon, Starbucks and other businesses to hash out a plan that made sense for both sides. Seattle and Amazon could have then trumpeted their success as a model for how liberal cities and tech companies plan to deal with the homeless epidemic they've helped to create.

Instead, Amazon now says it is questioning its future in Seattle.

"We remain very apprehensive about the future created by the council's hostile approach and rhetoric toward larger businesses, which forces us to question our growth here," Amazon VP Drew Herdener says.

"The city does not have a revenue problem — it has a spending efficiency problem," he says. "We are highly uncertain whether the city council's anti-business positions or its spending inefficiency will change for the better." Amazon declined to comment further.

Starbucks is also angry: "This city continues to spend without reforming and fail without accountability, while ignoring the plight of hundreds of children sleeping outside," said Starbucks Senior Vice President John Kelley. "If they cannot provide a warm meal and safe bed to a five-year-old child, no one believes they will be able to make housing affordable or address opiate addiction."

The homelessness epidemic is the inconvenient truth of the tech boom that has fueled growth in Seattle, the Bay Area and Los Angeles, and its a problem for both city governments and the tech companies in their area.

City leaders and tech CEOs should own it. There is a massive opportunity to innovate on solving this issue. Doing it now would save lives (and generate good press). Avoiding it will yield massive problems down the line.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/15/technology/business/seattle-homeless-amazon/index.html
 
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Property taxes, the primary source of tax revenue in Seattle, have nearly doubled over the past 7 years, WTF is the city doing with all the extra money?

If my income doubled you wouldn't see me asking for handouts from my richer friends.
 
Durkan signs Seattle’s head-tax ordinance into law
May 16, 2018​



SEATTLE - Mayor Jenny Durkan signed Seattle's controversial new employee tax into law Wednesday evening, her office announced in a press release.

The law imposes a tax of $275 per employe per year on companies grossing more than $20 million in Seattle. It includes a sunset clause after five years, with renewal requiring a council vote in 2023.

The law will take effect Jan. 1, 2019.

“We must make urgent progress on our affordability and homelessness crisis," Durkan said in a statement Wednesday. "Looking ahead, I am focused on acting to move people off the street and into safer places, to clean up the garbage and needles that are in our parks and in our communities, and to provide resources to those people experiencing homelessness, including job training, behavioral health services, and other supportive services. I’ve heard Seattle loud and clear: they want basic services delivered and are concerned whether the City of Seattle is using their money wisely, efficiently, and responsibly. As part of the budget process, I will remain focused on accountability and transparency for every department and on how this new revenue is going to be used towards homelessness services and new affordable housing.”

The tax is expected to raise about $48 million a year to pay for affordable housing and homeless services. Other cities have implemented similar taxes, but Seattle's is by far the highest in the nation.

Two state senators - Republican Mark Schoesler and Democrat Mark Mullet - have said the city's move was a violation of the state constitution and promised to attempt legislation in January that would overturn the tax.

“I fundamentally believe that we must continue to come together to listen to one another to address these significant challenges," Durkan's statement Wednesday reads. "I understand there are very strong passions and genuine policy differences between neighbors, businesses, community leaders and people across our City on how to best address this crisis, but I know we can be a City that continues to invent the future and come together to build a more affordable, inclusive, and just future for all who call this great City home."

http://q13fox.com/2018/05/16/durkan-signs-seattles-head-tax-ordinance-into-law/
 
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Seattle Needs a Cure for Its Tax Fever
Going after Amazon and other big employers turns out to have consequences.
By Joni Balter | June 4, 2018

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When Amazon announced its search for a second North American headquarters last year, it listed a “stable and consistent business climate” as a top priority. By that standard, its hometown -- HQ1 -- may be failing the test.

The Seattle City Council recently approved the largest “head tax” in the country -- $275 per employee per year that Amazon, Starbucks and more than 500 other big companies will have to pay.

Amid the rancorous Seattle debate, one socialist City Council member led a protest march against Amazon. A workers’ rights group sought criminal charges against the company for threatening to pause work on a building if the council approved a higher head tax of $500 per employee.

What’s driving all of this is the extraordinary disruption of a city that added 114,000 new people in the past seven years and is experiencing the nation’s fastest-rising home prices, putting home ownership out of reach for more and more people. The head-tax revenue is supposed to help Seattle deal with its large homeless population.

The blowback is sizable. A coalition of businesses led by Amazon, Starbucks, grocery stores and others is gathering signatures for a November referendum to revoke the tax. They will get their signatures and, likely, their recall.

Other nearby communities, like Pierce County to the south, are mocking Seattle by offering a $275-per-employee incentive to companies that move there. Amazon recently transferred jobs on a 130-person delivery support team from Seattle to Arizona, a decision supposedly unrelated to the head tax vote.

A Washington state lawmaker wants to revoke Seattle’s ability to pass taxes like the one aimed at big companies. And business writers eager for a new narrative of this often lionized city piled on, wondering, “Is Seattle Doomed?”

No, of course it isn’t, at least not in the short term. The economy will survive and thrive. Several other tech companies have offices here. But the city has sent a lousy message, with longer-term consequences. Note to other tech cities pondering a similar idea, and there are a few in California: Seattle’s head tax has become the headache tax.

After the heated battle, Amazon, usually low key or silent on local politics, issued a statement lambasting “the council’s hostile approach and rhetoric toward larger businesses, which forces us to question our growth here.”

No one fared well, not the City Council, which is too anti-business for mainstream Seattle; not the mayor, who should have vetoed the plan, and not Amazon, which has been reluctant or late to engage deeply in the community’s biggest problems.

Though the council opted for the lower head tax -- Amazon and Mayor Jenny Durkan influenced that part of the debate at least -- the vote was unanimous.

“Some subjects of taxation are more elastic or responsive than others,’’ said Jared Walczak, senior policy analyst at the business-friendly Tax Foundation. “The concern here is that some businesses can easily remove jobs to another jurisdiction or, more simply, expand elsewhere.’’

Walczak considers Seattle’s business climate unpredictable. He rattled off a slew of different tax proposals touted by mayoral candidates and the council during the past year: a foreign buyers’ investment properties tax, (not approved), a short-term rental tax (approved), a city income tax (approved, then struck down in court), an earlier head tax (held until approved in May), a sweetened-beverage tax (approved), a luxury real estate tax (not approved).

A little tax happy, to say the least.

Tech cities on the West Coast with desirable climates and surroundings can get away with these taxes. They have problems based on booming economies -- too many people (and homeless), too much growth and congestion, even too many high-paying jobs,

“We don’t want to force companies out of town, but it wouldn’t hurt us if growth in employment slowed,’’ said Mayor Lenny Siegel of Mountain View, California. “This is like that Yogi Berra saying, ‘Nobody goes there anymore, it is too crowded.’ I am more worried about businesses having a problem hiring because of the shortage of housing and transportation.’’

Mountain View, home of Google, and Cupertino, home of Apple, are considering head taxes similar to Seattle’s. The proceeds likely would go toward transportation improvements.

In 2016, San Francisco, home to Twitter, Uber and Salesforce, considered a tech tax but rejected it. Now it may tax some businesses to deal with its homelessness problem.

Seattle has been there, done that, and it was not the smartest move. The Seattle area has the third highest homeless population in the country. More money is spent each year as the problem deepens.

“We are already spending millions of dollars and so people lack confidence that these dollars are going to play a meaningful, incremental role,” said state Senator Reuven Carlyle, a Seattle Democrat who opposed the tax. “It comes at a big cost without buying us a big impact.”

The contrast between Seattle and the potential sites for Amazon’s second headquarters is dramatic when you consider the sizable subsidies and other benefits the 20 finalists are offering the company.

When Amazon makes its HQ2 announcement, which is expected soon, some psychological pressure on Seattle will ease. Another place will become the “it” city, with the prospect of thousands of new high-paying jobs stimulating the local economy.

Maybe then, Seattle and its smug City Council will pause, reflect and devise a better strategy for relating to the businesses that fill its tax coffers and fuel its prosperity.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-04/seattle-needs-a-cure-for-its-amazon-tax-fever
 
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Seattle City Council likely to repeal controversial 'head tax'
by KOMO Staff & Associated Press | Monday, June 11th 2018

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Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan signed Seattle's controversial business tax into law on May 14.


SEATTLE - The Seattle City Council, faced with continuing fierce opposition to its recently passed "head tax" on large businesses, has scheduled a special meeting Tuesday to consider repealing the ordinance.

Council President Bruce Harrell announced Monday that he will sponsor legislation to repeal the controversial ordinance, which was passed last month and currently is scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2019.

Harrell said expects the full council to vote on the proposed repeal during Tuesday's meeting.



The head tax, also known as an employee hours tax, would have required large businesses operating in the city to pay about $275 per employee, per year, for the next five years to fund a response to Seattle's growing homelessness crisis. The measure would raise an estimated $48 million.

But opponents of the tax vowed to fight it, and said Monday that they had gathered enough valid signatures to place a referendum on the fall ballot to repeal the tax.

Republican State Sen. Mark Schoesler also has said he would introduce a bill in Olympia to repeal the tax.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan on Monday conceded that the battle over the tax was becoming counterproductive.

"It is clear that the ordinance will lead to a prolonged, expensive political fight over the next five months that will do nothing to tackle our urgent housing and homelessness crisis," Durkan said in a prepared statement. "These challenges can only be addressed together as a city, and as importantly, as a state and a region.

“We heard you. This week, the City Council is moving forward with the consideration of legislation to repeal the current tax on large businesses to address the homelessness crisis," Durkan's statement said.

The mayor's statement also was signed by all members of the City Council except Kshama Sawant and Teresa Mosqueda.

Sawant issued her own statement via Twitter, saying the move to repeal the tax is "a capitulation to bullying by Amazon" and other large businesses.



She and other supporters of the head tax had argued that large employers like Amazon had contributed to the homelessness crisis by bringing thousands of high-paid employees to the city, which in turn has raised the cost of housing and forced people into the street. Therefore, they should be forced to help fund a solution to the homeless emergency.

John Murray, a spokesman with the No Tax on Jobs campaign, said Monday that the coalition appreciates that the "Seattle City Council has heard the voices of the people loud and clear and are now reconsidering this ill-conceived tax."

He said they'll await the result of the council vote. The campaign has raised about $235,000, with many more employers pledging their support, including Amazon, Starbucks and Paul Allen's Vulcan.

Proponents say people are dying on the streets, and while city-funded programs found homes for 3,400 people last year, the problem deepens. The Seattle region had the third-highest number of homeless people in the U.S. and saw 169 homeless deaths in 2017.

But opponents said large businesses should not be penalized for paying good living wages to their employees.

Local family-owned, mid-sized businesses like Dick’s Drive-in, also said the new contentious head tax was a tough pill to swallow. The owner’s grandson, Saul Spady said the burger chain would have to pay tens of thousands of dollars under the new head tax.

“I don’t see a compromise at all. I see a council that is continually looking for avenues to increase revenue with zero accountability,” Spady said after the tax was passed. “They’re forcing us to really think really hard about having a more efficient work force, giving less to charity or possibly not being in the City of Seattle.”

http://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-city-council-to-consider-repealing-controversial-head-tax
 
I think this is a fascinating story. Given the issues that these cities are facing, I don't have an issue with a "head tax", assuming that it's spent in a proper manner. Similarly, I can understand why the companies would fight it. It's interesting to me because the pressure that these companies place on the public infrastructure is exactly why additional funding is necessary.

I think it's bad form to repeal the tax so soon after passing it though. I think this is one of those things that you pass and stand behind or you don't pass at all.
 
I think this is a fascinating story. Given the issues that these cities are facing, I don't have an issue with a "head tax", assuming that it's spent in a proper manner.

Yeah, that's not happening.

Here's a glimpse on how much Seattle residents trust their City Council to spend their tax money in a recent Town Hall open-mic:



Seattle spent $60 Millions on homelessness last year. This year that number is increasing to $63 Millions. Apparently it does fuck all, especially to the drug issue that no one on the Council want to talk about, so now they want big employers like Amazon to pay more so they can spend more. Where did all those millions go? No one knows, cause the City refuse to provide an itemized chart of how they're spending it.

No wonder the Head Tax idea is failing spectacularly, even after they tried to bulldoze it through.
 
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Yeah, that's not happening.

Here's a glimpse on how much Seattle residents trust their City Council to spend their tax money in a recent Town Hall open-mic:



Seattle spent $60 Millions on homelessness last year. This year that number is increasing to $63 Millions. Apparently it does fuck all, especially to the drug issue that no one on the Council want to talk about, so now they want big employers like Amazon to pay more so they can spend more. Where did all those millions go? No one knows, cause the City refuse to provide an itemized chart of how they're spending it.

No wonder the Head Tax idea is failing spectacularly, even after they tried to bulldoze it through.

Sorry but I generally don't care about what people say at town halls or other such gatherings. They tend towards the squeakiest wheels, not necessarily the most well-informed. It's a good way to get a feel for public sentiment but not for what's actually taking place.

And knowing the budget numbers doesn't say if things are being spent well or poorly. From the link you posted, Seattle's general fund increased by 30%. So, they're obviously seeing the revenue necessary to pursue many of their projects. More importantly, this head tax is not a major source of their revenues. They're obviously not relying on it for anything except the homelessness situation.

Lastly, if homelessness is the biggest issue facing the city, such that they declared it a state of emergency, I'd rather there be a video on the actual homeless issue than on the head tax in general. For example, your link mentions $29 Million in new housing for the homeless. Quality, location, quantity, etc. are all pieces of information that would better explain if this is a good idea or a bad idea.

Nothing personal but I hate when people say that the government isn't spending the money well (and they often aren't) but can't explain exactly how the spending is being done poorly or how it could be done better.

From my limited reading, Seattle (like many other cities) has an affordable housing shortage that is basically rooted in the reality that high income earners have purchased the majority of the homes near the city's ideal locations and that competition for those homes has driven up the overall prices within the city. The cities lack the ability, for a variety of different reasons, to construct new housing that low income residents can afford, either for purchase or for rent. Additionally, the public transportation system is not robust enough to efficiently move people in and out of the central city locations to the affordable exurbs and suburbs (which are not the same as the more expensive exurbs or suburbs).

This particular problem is not unique to Seattle but to say that Seattle's intended solutions are a waste of money without a better explanation seems inadequate.
 
Seattle council members on Tuesday plan to repeal its controversial head tax less than a month after it unanimously passed.

Mayor Jenny Durkan and council members on Monday sent out a joint statement announcing a special council meeting at noon on Tuesday, where they will vote on a bill that would repeal the head tax. Seven council members—all but Kshama Sawant and Teresa Mosqueda—signed onto the statement, well over the necessary votes.

https://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2018/6/11/seattle-city-council-plans-to-repeal-the-head-tax


....


Well, that didn’t work out as planned...


Apparently when you tax the shit out of buisinesses, they no longer want to do buisiness with you.


Who ever could predict such a thing?
 
Damn I was hoping they would keep it for a few years so we could see the real consequences play out.

I mean how could a tax on corporations to deal with the homeless be anything other than a progressive gem of an idea?
 
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