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Amazon Threatens To Move Jobs Out of Seattle Over New Tax (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Amazon has threatened to move jobs out of its hometown of Seattle after the city council introduced a new tax to try to address the homelessness crisis. The world's second-biggest company has warned that the "hostile" tax, which will charge firms $275 per worker a year to fund homelessness outreach services and affordable housing, "forces us to question our growth here."
Amazon, which is Seattle's biggest private sector employer with more than 40,000 staff in the city, had halted construction work on a 17-storey office tower in protest against the tax. Pressure from Amazon and other big employers, including Starbucks and Expedia, had forced councillors to reduce the tax from an initial proposal of $500 per worker. The tax will only effect companies making revenue of more than $20 million-a-year. The tax is expected to raise between $45 million and $49 million a year, of which about $10 million would come from Amazon. The company said it would restart building work on the tower but may sublease another new office block to reduce its tax bill.
Amazon, which is Seattle's biggest private sector employer with more than 40,000 staff in the city, had halted construction work on a 17-storey office tower in protest against the tax. Pressure from Amazon and other big employers, including Starbucks and Expedia, had forced councillors to reduce the tax from an initial proposal of $500 per worker. The tax will only effect companies making revenue of more than $20 million-a-year. The tax is expected to raise between $45 million and $49 million a year, of which about $10 million would come from Amazon. The company said it would restart building work on the tower but may sublease another new office block to reduce its tax bill.
The problem with the homeless in Seattle is there is no cheap housing. The way to fix that is to rezone a whole lot of real estate to be multi-family / apartments. The way to NOT do that is to subsidize the expensive housing.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
scott walker will sell out workers for the jobs.
You know the majority of that money will go towards slush funds and other private projects. Giving the government more money is like giving booze to an alcoholic.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
No, she's going to Gitmo.
All the invoices for upgrades to Gitmo and all the increased flight traffic confirms it.
The reasoning behind this tax is the idea that big employers like Amazon are creating high salary jobs in the community which are driving up the price of housing. Therefore, the homelessness is, at least in part, Amazon's fault, and they should pay to "fix" the problem through a special tax, aimed exclusively at those businesses which are bringing so much money into the community.
With this kind of insane logic, the city will doom itself. Companies like Amazon should leave and set up shop elsewhere. We'll see if that fixes the problems in Seattle's economy.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
If there is insufficient affordable housing in Seattle then move the homeless to where there is housing and a lower cost of living.
C'mon, Jeffie, leave Seattle. Dare 'ya. Double-dog dare 'ya. Go already. If Amazon left, there would still be tech and engineering firms in Seattle, but a lot of hot money would pull out of housing. Which would actually help the goal of affordability.
The median home price in Seattle is $722,000. I'd say, at the very least, it's a factor.
https://www.seattletimes.com/b...
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
A round of applause for Amazon standing up to government bullying and blackmail.
Read some articles about this and you'll see that the city council has zero gratitude for Amazon and nothing but contempt and an entitlement to Amazon's earnings. Amazon can reasonably expect this tax to double, triple, or go even higher in the future. The best part was when a city council member said Amazon was partially to blame for the homelessness due to their success.
I hope Amazon pulls every job they have out of Seatle and goes to a city that appreciates them.
Plus, really amateur move passing the tax when the new construction is halfway finished. The government pros in Boston or NY would never have made such a mistake.
As European -used to high taxes everywhere- i'd say that worker's income is the stupiest thing to tax. It increases the cost of labour, thereby slowing down economic growth and increasing the unemployment issue, leading to poverty.
I know, you'd have to tax something. But politicians usually pick the easiest thing to tax, disregarding consequences. You should tax where the costs are: vehicle tax for highways, housing tax based on property value, true costs for water, electricity and sewer etc. But stay away from raising income, and to a lesser degree sales taxes.
Don't do what Europe does - with 35-50% income tax (and thats' exclusing social insurances like retirement, unemployment and healthcare insurances) and 20% sales tax. It artificially makes everything expensive, especially labour intensive work, and has no added value apart pumping round money and making expenses less transparent.
2 cents.
A glitch a day keeps the bugs away.
If it was anyone other than Amazon I might agree with you.
Fuck Bezos.
Besides, that 10 million dollars is far less than he is spending on cubicles or whatever so he should quit whinging.
Where did Amazon threaten to move jobs out of Seattle?
I have read thousands of /. posts (well at least hundreds) that raising taxes on corporations doesn't affect how they are run. How could this be possible if taxes don't adversely affect them.
Either Amazon, who has something to lose in this situation, is lying. OR the people with nothing to lose who make this claim are lying. Which is more likely?
Bat meet shit.
Fuck Amazon. Let 'em leave.
I don't respond to AC's.
is that you eventually run out of other people's money.
~Margaret Thatcher
At most this would cost Amazon $11 million. Yawn.
One of the major complaints about the head tax, beyond simply driving business away, is that it demonstrates the mayor's and city council's "Red Queen thinking": "Funding first, plan afterward!", and "Off with their heads!" if others don't agree. As this local editorial points out (quote below), the city has not been able to show that they are able to reduce homelessness with the resources they've applied so far, partly due to inept management. So they're demanding more money with no evidence that they are capable of using it effectively.
From the editorial:
... Seattle is just starting reforms based on a 2016 study that found its homeless programs suffer more from weak management and lax contracts than funding shortfalls. Now, before showing any reduction in homelessness, the council is more than doubling funding over 2016 levels by adding the head tax.
Creating more public housing units, and adjusting zoning laws to allow higher apartments would allow it to increase availability. This would push down rent in the surrounding areas, you don't need to build them in 'down town' but somewhere in the middle near accessible transport hubs.
I don't read AC
Seattle's government didn't have the will to directly tax workers $10/wk because there would be street protests, so instead they do a back door tax.
How about ALL WORKERS pay a percentage of their paycheck:
It's only fair!
Exactly. Bezos is a real PoS. He should go relocate to North Korea.
Read some articles about this and you'll see that the city council has zero gratitude for Amazon
They really don't need to have gratitude to Amazon, that's sick.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Amazon was looking at add more employee's in Seattle before this bill came up so you say at most 11 million you mean at least 11 million if they add those new employee's.
To me the obvious solution to this is to simply charge the tax and let Amazon move. Techsters don't mind moving for a job, so they'll just follow with no issues. Consider the upward pressure on housing costs officially relieved.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Hear hear. Other close by cities are already suggesting a move to their city would benefit Amazon. Bellevue, just across Lake Washington, says they are "open for business." And Bellevue's quality of life is a whole lot nicer, not to mention safer. The thing is, this isn't just about Amazon, though you would never know it from the news. Several low profit margin businesses in Seattle technically qualify for this tax and will likely move or go out of business. Seattle was once a nice place, but sadly, it's not my father's Seattle any longer.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
> I hope Amazon pulls every job they have out of Seatle and goes to a city that appreciates them.
Seattleite here -- that is my dearest wish as well. Our economy was fine before Amazon was here, and will be fine long after they leave.
If it was anyone other than Amazon I might agree with you.
Fuck Bezos.
There's a better way to fuck Bezos. Buy stuff from Target, Walmart, Netflix, or Apple instead of Amazon. Hit him where it hurts, his wallet.
If I were the richest human on the planet and my home town said to me "Hey, howzabout you throw a pittance our way so we can solve some pressing problems", my response would be "Absolutely! And let's make sure there are very intelligent and highly qualified people overseeing those programs, and a citizens' advisory council, and rock on". Bezos, however, is just the richest animal on the planet with no real regard for the other critters.
That said: Fuck scAmazon anyway.
Warning: This signature may offend some viewers.
You forgot to tick "post anonymously" you fool.
Didn't they just recently pass a city income tax for this exact same thing?
If they balk at the tax pass a law saying they have to give up a 50% stake in their company if they move out and raise it to $500/worker employed by the company globally. Amazon pays zero taxes, no reason they should be allowed to continue at all, let alone to bitch about what everyone else has to deal with.
You now owe me $1000 per year even tho i'm giving you nothing.
I mean it's no big deal to you right?
Yes, this. I wish I hadn't posted so I could mod up.
The ONLY times, twice, that I have put money in that cocksucker's pocket was when some random eBay seller was reselling for scAmazon, and I left negative reviews both times.
Warning: This signature may offend some viewers.
They really don't need to have gratitude to Amazon, that's sick.
Like it or not soft skills matter phantomfive. Both politicians and corporate leadership involves a great deal of tact. The politicians showed a distinct lack of critical skill.
The proper stance to take here is one of mutual respect. The city and the company came to an (presumably) mutually beneficial agreement. The city doesn't need to grovel to Amazon, but treat them with respect, and expect the same in return.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
People aren't wandering the streets because they can't afford a $722k house! Even if the houses were $10k it wouldn't make any difference in homelessness.
Um. No.
There are many people who can make a $700-$800 payment monthly, but ask them to pay more or give them one bad medical problem or car accident plus recovery time and they can no longer do that. If the labor market doesn't provide a job that lets them earn enough to pay for local housing, or even if they can't find the job because of inefficiencies in the market, they become homeless.
Some programs mitigate that very slightly--emergency shelters are NOT great but it's cold outside in the winter, and subsidized housing can help if the list eventually gets to you--but there's nowhere near enough of it to match the need.
Addressing homelessness requires addressing numerous problems--actual physical health is one part of it. Mental health is one part of it. Training is one part of it. Having someplace you can take a shower, receive mail, and/or sleep while you try to get a job is one part of it.
So yes, plenty of people would still be homeless if the cost of a house was lower, because there are other issues involved in homelessness than just the cost of housing. But of course the two things are related, because people become homeless for the first time when they cannot pay for a home.
Real lawyers write in C++
Seattleite here -- that is my dearest wish as well. Our economy was fine before Amazon was here, and will be fine long after they leave.
Don't be so hard on Mr. Fudd^WBezos - the poor guy can't even afford hair!
#DeleteChrome
A super-liberal company in a super-liberal city complaining about taxes for social programs. That's rich. I thought liberals wanted big government programs to take care of the down-trodden. Amazon is all for more social programs at the federal level, but they hire a truckload of lawyers to set up tax shelters and move money into offshore accounts to avoid paying their fair share of federal taxes. Someone else is footing the bill for those programs. Now the city introduces a more direct tax that can't be avoided and suddenly it's "hostile".
Yeah... poor Amazon whatever will they do... I hope they get taxed out of business. It's a massive corporate leech draining your local businesses and workers of their livelihood.
If they're still losing money on their cheap prime shipping for heavy orderers, then it hurts them more to continue being a customer.
Stealing from the poor to give to the rich....
[($)]
I don't know if there's a new version out there. But it's a tax on hours worked while in the City. If your company makes more than 20 million a year, and even if you have no presence in Seattle at all you have to pay $0.26042 per hour that your employees are working within the city. This includes taxi companies, delivery companies, etc. (note $0.26042 an hour x 1900 hours comes out to $500... so I'm guessing I'm looking at an older version of the bill. But it's what the City o f Seattle themselves display on their website). Exempt are non-profits, Insurance companies, Federal state agencies, companies that solely deliver liquor and companies that solely delivery automobile fuel.
"B. The amount of the tax shall be equal to the employee hours worked within the City during each quarter of the calendar year, multiplied by the rate of $0.26042 per hour worked. The employee hours worked exclude vacation and sick leave hours. If an employee works both within and outside the City, it will be the responsibility of the business to calculate and report the number of hours worked within the City. "
A round of applause for Amazon standing up to government bullying and blackmail.
Seattle would be better off without amazon at this point. They have screwed up the traffic for the entire area and haven't put anything toward helping it. They are part of the reason that normal jobs are getting priced out of the area. I hope they move out and don't go just to Bellevue. Leave the entire puget sound. We'd be better off right now if you could take the pressure off infrastructure growth, housing, etc. I'm a software engineer, in Seattle.
Seattle and Amazon have been at odds for some time. Amazon is looking for it's new headquarters (read: another city/state drooling to take it in the pooper with tax incentives). Seattle is nudging Amazon by giving them less and less.
If you tax something you get less of it, if you subsidize something you get more of it.
So, Seattle seems to want less jobs and more homelessness.
This needs to stop. It's too bad all the states are too desperate and one of them will cave, because they just need to say 'hey, if you don't like it go to Europe because you're getting the same deal in every state in the country'
thank you for building some nice buildings and bringing a larger number of entitled overpaid idiots to downtown and suburban seattle. but if you are going to generate such an influx and expect to not have to support the infrastructure that you are successfully straining, get the fuck out. take the expensive glass balls with you if you like.
interesting that the company as a whole represents the average sense of entitlement of their stereotypical employees.
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
This is a demonstration of how all the cities bidding for HQ2 have failed. The proper strategy for all was to make no concessions. All but one "win" regardless, but the winner is held hostage by the initial concessions and later by a perceived dependency on the company. Seattle should tell Amazon to take all of its 40k Seattle area employees and find a place for HQ3 and have Bezos take that option to his board and shareholders.
Amazon ditches Arlington as HQ2. I guess the BILLION dollars in incentives just did not stack up. I wonder what the selected city is going to give Amazon for the privilege of their presence.
Read some articles about this and you'll see that the city council has zero gratitude for Amazon
They really don't need to have gratitude to Amazon, that's sick.
Where do you think the city gets its money from? Taxes. If Amazon leaves, that's a huge hit in revenue.
Props to you for being intellectually consistent. Well done. You're a rare bird.
Actually, it's a $20 million dollar hit right now.
If Amazon adds employees, it goes up even more. The socialist city councilwoman (Yes, she ran as a socialist) said that Amazon can easy play double, triple, or quadruple this tax. Smart money says the city council doubles the tax in five years because, why not?
Why should the city say "You know what? We've mismanaged our funds so you pay us $20 million a year to start."
It's wrong.
If in fact homelessness is caused mostly by Amazon raising the home prices, wouldn't it be more efficient to relocate the homeless somewhere where there is no Amazon or other large corporations inflating housing prices?
$20 million is still a yawn. Let them leave.
They really don't need to have gratitude to Amazon, that's sick.
The city doesn't need to grovel to
I mean, to hell with Amazon and all but, in your little fucked up world, showing gratitude is "groveling"? How the fuck did I end up sharing a planet with you people?
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Props to you for being intellectually consistent. Well done. You're a rare bird.
Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Be well!
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They have screwed up the traffic for the entire area and haven't put anything toward helping it.
Not every tech company has a CEO willing to build tunnels under their city to relieve traffic congestion....
Already Made Billions this year but wants to squeeze a little more from his " Prime" customers next month.
Yet he don't want to loose a dime to anyone else. Seems I recall a parable written a couple thousand years ago, sounds so similar....
$20 million is still a yawn. Let them leave.
If Amazon left, which I think they should, they would also forgo the current taxes Amazon & Amazon employees pay.
This reminds me of a story about Rush Limbaugh. Rush used to live in NY City and after NY city & state kept raising taxes, he left. The mayor of NY joked that if he knew that raising taxes was all it took, he would have done it a long time ago. I'm sure he felt rather clever about himself, but now the city & state lost a significant chunk of money that's especially significant when both run a yearly deficit.
Government is a parasite. If they feed to much they'll kill the host then they'll die.
Well, Amazon is welcome to go where it pleases. Most likely it will go to Canada, where, after increasing the prices there, it will be pushed out as well.
Amazon's revenue last year was $177 billion. $10 Million is literally nothing to Amazon.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
I thought he was buried in California. I wonder why they want to get rid of him.
It is $200 a head and been in place for years. I have no idea why Kirkland is anti-business, but I am guessing it is really because we keep voting masseuses and trainers to city council as none of the engineers have time to run the city.
The situation isn't that Seattle is anti-business, it is pro-homeless. They do everything they can to attract homeless people and protect their anti-social behaviors.
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Showing gratitude where none is required can be. It depends on your reason for doing so.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
[quote]Government is a parasite ...[/quote]
Who put in all the roads. infrastructure, housing and educated the work force? Because it sure as hell wasn't Amazon, idiot.
Just move out of Kalifornia and avoid the endless future BS. Yes you are stuck with distribution centers but customer support & managerial operations can be somewhere else.
This arrogance of the private sector shouldn't be tolerated. Just send in the special task force, pick randomly ~20 high-tiers and put them in jail. Release them when the company learns some humility.
Fuck. These greedy suckers are profiting from a civilised society. They should give something back to keep the show going.
Who put in all the roads. infrastructure, housing and educated the work force?
The taxpayers.
There's a better way to fuck Bezos. Buy stuff from Target, Walmart, Netflix, or Apple instead of Amazon. Hit him where it hurts, his wallet.
All mega-corporations have some tiny fraction of customers who've sworn them off forever. But it hardly matters because there's only a handful to choose from, so the 1% unhappy with Amazon buy at Target, the 1% unhappy with Target buy at Wal-Mart, the 1% unhappy with Wal-Mart buy at Apple, the 1% unhappy with Apple buy at Amazon and they all think it's making some sort of difference. By all means, it's good to have personal principles and say things like "Well, at least *my* money doesn't go to Apple and their walled garden" but I can't help but laugh at people who think it "hurts Bezos" who's selling off a billion dollar's worth of Amazon stock a year to fund his space dream. He couldn't even find you as a rounding error in his profit and loss statement.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Going down the path of California. Tax everyone for your "social" problems. Hows that utopia working out for you?
It is not the job of Amazon or government to save people from having to make economic decisions.
Companies like Amazon are the engine that drives Seattle's wealth, not the other way around. If as a result some people have been priced out of the city, then let them move to the suburbs.
Realize that Flat Tax would not only simplify tax processing/handling for everyone, but there would be no need to create any new tax laws anymore for any reason. Both people and companies would always know how much tax they will need to pay. There would be no more arguments between people/companies and governments, about taxes, anymore!
Oh dear ... SJW business finds that it doesn't like the high taxes that come from the governments that ... it itself favors.
Amazon is not going to move their employees around for $275 a head. Any implication that they will is a joke with no credibility. The average cost of one of their employees is probably 400k a year including facilities benefits and salary. The lost productivity and direct moving costs would probably be at least 50k. Amazon is frugal not stupid.
Is that you wake up in the morning and you're still an empty-headed yeah with a face like a shoe who tries to disguise a vacuous argument with a soundbite. --Winston Churchill. Or maybe Lord Howler. I'm not sure.
The proper stance to take here is one of mutual respect. The city and the company came to an (presumably) mutually beneficial agreement. The city doesn't need to grovel to Amazon, but treat them with respect, and expect the same in return.
The city and Amazon were at a mutually-acceptable position prior to this tax. The city unilaterally is changing the agreement. That doesn't really sound like "mutual respect" to me.
It's not "grovelling" for the city to stay with status quo. They're expecting AMAZON to grovel, by accepting the new tax without complaints or reactions.
If Amazon is willing to relocate or not grow a business that already employs 40.000 people in the local economy just to avoid 10.000.000 USD in taxes annually, I would say let them. Who needs an asshole company like this? I know it's currently en vogue in the US, or at least for a lot of people, to piss on anything remotely related to social responsibility, but if your economy is dependent on businesses ripping off the state and the people, it's fucked anyway.
I feel so sig.
When you subsidize a thing, you wind up getting more of it. When you tax a thing, you discourage it. So we're (I'm in Seattle) taxing jobs and giving it to the least productive members of society. Am I the only one who thinks this is a terrible idea?
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
They are taxing companies with employees that work there, not just that live there. Do you think these employees would rather pay to help with homelessness issues in the communities they live or Seattle where they work? Well they have no choice now. Because they work in Seattle their company's will make less money and their wages will get reduced/not increase and the communities they live will have less money to take care of the local issues.
So a measly $10 million is too much for a man with over $130 Billion. Cheap bastard....
I'm sure it's somewhere in the many comments below, but up here in the +5's no-one seems to be mentioning how small of a tax this actually is??? Amazon made $3 Billion in PROFIT last year on $117 Billion in Revenue. This $10 Million tax is one third of one percent of those profits. How a corporation with that type of financial position can claim that a local effort to improve conditions for the poor is a "Hostile" act, and no-one on this forum seems bothered by that, is what's wrong with the world right now. Amazon can absorb this tax into their operating expenses just fine, but they cry bloody murder anyway because corporations only care about one thing. They will actually pay $2 Million to stop the government from taking $1 Million. Amazon would NEVER "leave and set up shop elsewhere" over $10 Million.
Amazon insists on being the ones to abuse and oppress and WILL NOT SHARE this role with the government !!
My plan: live somewhere else !! work somewhere else !!
I lived in a van, ...
Every Summer, my buds and I did that on Block Island and other places until the cops chased us out. Well, sometimes later.
Fun times!!
Getting drunk, getting laid, ..... I miss those days!!
Please!
This kind of municipal thievery needs to be opposed.
And the best way to do it is to deprive them of the ability to practice their thievery on you.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
So-Called Locals: The Road to Corporate Taxation in Seattle
Over the past decade large capital flows --- frequently if not mostly of money laundering and speculation origin --- have poured into the Pacific Northwest, from Vancouver, Canada, to King County (Seattle), Washington, USA.
During the last mayoral election, candidate Cary Moon, along with Councilmember Lisa Herbold, raised the issue of external impacts on our local housing market. A logical critique, given reports by local realtors of a 70% unoccupied rate of recently purchased homes --- obviously not purchased to be lived in! The candidate for mayor who would later be elected, Jenny Durkan, along with other elected politicians, pushed back against any investigation into rampant real estate/housing speculation, citing that bugaboo of the political theater crowd, racism. (As Trump won the presidential election thanks to low voter turnout, an even lower voter turnout in Seattle --- at 37% of registered voters --- ensured Durkan's victory as mayor --- a sad day for the American electorate all around! Interestingly, they both won with around the same percentage of votes.)
When Gary Gensler was chief of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the Obama Administration, he instigated a study of futures trades, long claimed to be done for "hedging purposes," and found that over 90% were pure speculation trades, only done for quick profit and market manipulation. (Price setting, which occurs in the futures markets)
Although so-called pundits at Fox may refer to Seattle as a "socialist hellhole" --- Seattle has long been run as the personal fiefdom of the rich through their influential Community Devleopment Roundtable (with tenant rights having been essentially missing over the past century).
http://archive.seattleweekly.c...
https://www.thestranger.com/se...
Along with that rampant money laundering/speculative capital flows into local real estate (also involving private equity/leveraged buyouts of local apartment buildings, etc.), many financial/economic forces worked together to drive up housing prices: the destruction of local affordable housing, with the replacement of high-end condos and rentals, while local jobs were displaced in the corporate rush to offshore labor, leading to an extreme tightening of the housing market, further aggravated by the recent surge and influx of new Amazon employees.
The employment picture was exacerbated by Amazon's (and Bezos') destruction, both locally and nationally, of thousands of book and record stores in its march to be the One World Retail Corporation! Add to that the cited 50% first-year turnover rate for new hires at Amazon (for whatever myriad reasons???) and consequently one observes a general rise in rental rates. (I.e., both supply and demand --- and turnover --- drive up the rates as landlords typically jack up rental rates each time an apartment becomes vacant.)
With Amazon's traditional history of tax avoidance,
https://itep.org/amazon-inc-pa...
it is no surprise of their strong push back against the recent city council measure.
As cities in Canada (and throughout the Americas and Europe) have raised taxes on foreign purchases of local real estate, it is almost logical that Seattle would follow a similar trajectory.
An excellent recent financial article in the Epoch Times further explains how the banking system drives up housing prices.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/...
Beginning in the first year of the 21st century, Seattle's local chamber of commerce, togethe
That's what the socialists in Venezuela said when they nationalized all that private property.
Think there will be a big article in the Washington Post about how Amazon is too greedy to help with the homeless issue in Seattle? Somehow I doubt it.
For Seattle, from 1850 to roughly 1900, the city government was funded by prostitutes, and bar keepers. In the 1940's, it was saved from bankruptcy by a "loan" from a local whorehouse.
Until the 1970s, prostitution was the biggest industry in Seattle.
As such,your local streetwalker on Aurora had, and has more to do wuth funding the city, than taxpayers do
Then Seattle can lose all the taxes that all those high paid people pay through property and sales tax. Amazon probably got a tax break from Seattle to locate/grow there in order to create this new revenue.
On the plus side, there will be a lot of cheap housing for the homeless a year or two after that.
A tax as a solution to any problem isn't a solution. It's a temporary (at best) kicking of the can until it's a problem for someone else.
The Seattle government (like most governments) created the problem.
Thank-you, you are so wonderful for posting that comment.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Money for the SJW causes, or moving out of Seattle so they don't have to pay it?
I guess will be a good of how seriously they take their causes....
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Wow Amazon has no problems helping the illegal "dreamers" but want to move because of a tax designed to help the homeless?
Interesting how they agreed to collect use tax in states where they don't have to collect sales tax like Utah but refuse to pay taxes. In states like Utah they are collecting sales tax on behalf of Utah residents who would normally claim this as use tax on their state income taxes.
The issue Amazon is taking is not just the tax money itself, it’s that Seattle government has absolutely no idea what to do with the money. They have no plan nor even a plan for developing a plan.
On the day after the head tax was approved, the headline in the local newspaper went something like this “Now That the Head Tax is Approved, What to Do With the Money?”
Meanwhile, a woman was raped in the bathroom of a local car dealership in a decent neighborhood the other day by – you guessed it – a mentally ill homeless person. There are used heroin needles all over local parks as the homeless have the right to setup camp in any public park. The homeless’ cars (sorry, I meant ‘homes’) cannot be ticketed or towed, so if one happens to park blocking your driveway, sorry but you're SoL. There’s garbage all over the place.
The city has become an open sewer.
Most people are on Amazon’s side with this one, as everyone in this town is getting fed up with the City Council doing a whole lot of virtue signaling, but not much else.
https://www.theguardian.com/us...
Quick notes - the town decided to screw GE. They had big buildings and such and the council thought - hey, they can't move out of here... we got them by the short hairs. The night they voted to tax the crap out of GE, that's the night they raised buildings all over town, to the ground. The tax was on buildings. Gone. So did the jobs. So fuck you Schenectady. Yet I know people that stil live in the town and they still vote for Democrats - that brought this all on them! Can't fix stupid.