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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.
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.
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.
There is an old saying: if you want to discourage something, tax it. If you want to encourage it, subsidize it. What Seattle is saying is "success is bad, therefore we will tax you for it! Homelessness is good, therefore we will subsidize it!" Only in a socialist worker's paradise like Seattle could such economic idiocy even be proposed much less seriously considered.
Come to Atlanta. We have cheap power, cheap gas, cheap office space, low taxes, plenty of skilled workers, and a climate much nicer than Seattle. Our economy is doing quite well compared to various high-tax states. Last I checked Atlanta was still on the short list for Amazon's "HQ2". Maybe it's time for it to be "HQ1" instead.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
It's the other way around. After 3 months homeless you're about 90% likely to start suffering from symptoms of mental illness. Insecurity tends to desocialize people. Drug use pops up as either a coping mechanism or a consequence of losing employment and access to addictive pharmaceuticals (e.g. I was on Eszopiclone for 12 days; it wasn't working, and I took a day off work while going through horrendous withdrawal that began with a minor myocardial infarction and mostly involved anxiety and a sensation like having sunburn everywhere)--in either case, becoming addiction due to uncontrolled dosage adjusted largely to counter tolerance.
Many shelters also will refuse to board people who can't show a state ID or other documentation, or who don't get in by a curfew. That's a problem here due to public transportation being crap and people often ending up on the other side of town trying to find DHR assistance or a job--the homeless basically have to huddle around the homeless shelter and not do anything if they want to be housed.
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Yeah, it wasn't a good exchange. Definitely should have put more thought into it before emptying out the insane asylums.
The theory was that newly developed anti-psychotic medications solve much of the problem.
In practice, anti-psychotics have some very negative side effects (tremors, weight gain, etc.), and people don't take them if they aren't supervised. Think about it: If in your mind you are the king of the world, and a pill could bring back a reality of poverty, no friends, an alienated family, and little hope, would you take it?