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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.
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?
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.
They just come back. A midwest city tried putting them on a plane with a one way ticket to Honolulu. They won't die of exposure sleeping in a park. And they'll never scrape together enough money for airfare back. But Hawaii put a stop to that. Anywhere else is just a Greyhound bus ride away. And the homeless influx into Seattle is accelerating now that the city council has found more funds for them.
Have gnu, will travel.
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.
Bat meet shit.
Fuck Amazon. Let 'em leave.
I don't respond to AC's.
At most this would cost Amazon $11 million. Yawn.
The prices of housing would not drop if Amazon left... I say this as one who lives in a city that has a housing price crisis far worse than Seattle.
All that will happen is that the housing market will slow down a bit, but it will not create a significant dip in price, because most people will not be willing to sell their homes for less than they were worth when they bought them. Developers will stop making new builds as a consequence of the slowed demand, and the rate of housing price increase will slow to a trickle.
But it will not be affordable again.... or at least not in any time scale that is meaningful to anyone alive today. It might make a difference for your grandchildren, as wages finally start catching up with housing prices, but that's about it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Bye, Starbucks, purveyor of boring coffee in even more boring cookie-cutter chain cafes.
If the economy generally slows down and they have to move for work, they'll either have to rent their home (increasing housing stock), sell short, or go into foreclosure. All of which will push down market prices, especially if 30y mortgage rates hit 5-6%.
The problem is what to do with poor people who need housing.
One idea was to build a lot of new low cost housing in poor areas.
A lot can be done with not much new money and a lot of poor people get a home.
Slums result. Location and isolation keep the crime problems to a small area of a state and city.
Another idea is for a government to buy expensive housing in wealthy areas and put poor people into good housing.
That a poor person now in a wealthy area will become like the wealthy people due to a new home.
Not many people get a new home and the government needs more and more taxation to buy expensive homes.
Poor people then need to be fully supported in wealthy areas. More tax to pay for more support services.
Once nice wealthy areas slowly become slums as more very poor people are moved in.
Slum conditions result in every part of a nice city.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
If Amazon left, there would still be tech and engineering firms in Seattle
And an enormous chunk of Seattle's tax base would be removed, thus lowering total city tax income, thus exacerbating the problem. This is Economics 101 kind of stuff. You cannot tax, regulate, or legislate your way into prosperity. As long as businesses can move to a less-oppressive state, they will.
Next I expect someone to suggest a private company like Amazon somehow be prevented by force of law from relocating "for the good of the people." Land of the free?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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.
Amazon isn't going to actually leave. Low-tax states don't attract intelligent, educated people. When was the last time you heard someone saying that they really, really want to move to Oklahoma or Arkansas when they finish school. People actually like having amenities ... paid for by (OMG!) taxes. Funny how that works.
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
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.
No, you are assuming that housing is a commodity which behaves like a Free Market good. It isn't. If people, banks, holding companies etc. are not getting the price they on they often just take the house off of the market for a year or two and wait for the market to recover. There is no tight supply and demand linkage.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
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.
Local news. They interview the new arrivals from time to time for public interest spots.
Have gnu, will travel.
> 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.
You forgot to tick "post anonymously" you fool.
Except Oklahoma and Arkansas are not low tax states. Florida, New Hampshire and Texas however are.
And Esp. FL and TX plenty of firms are moving to. You are correct that taxes aren't everything, but when they become onerous to the point of putting the firm at a competitive disadvantage. Then at some point the costs involved with moving are lower than staying.
Some Canadian jurisdictions have done this as well. One Alberta government was in the habit of giving welfare recipients one-way bus tickets to BC.
Progressive taxes -- rate goes up with revenue -- are somehow "unfair?"
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.
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".
But they do not have a plan.
Headline in this mornings paper.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/seattles-head-tax-fight-goes-to-the-next-round-how-best-to-solve-homelessness/
The city council has no clue about what to do.
But they do not have a plan.
And you did not read what I wrote: "... 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'."
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Stealing from the poor to give to the rich....
[($)]
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.
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.
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...)
I'm sure there's a suburb close enough that they can keep the same emplyees.
I live in a suburb near Seattle. Amazon could easily move to one or more of the nearby suburbs: Redmond (where Microsoft is), Kirkland (where Google has their second-largest campus after their headquarters), Bothell (not sexy or famous but has lots of business park space, and people are increasingly moving there because it's equidistant from Seattle and the rest of the suburbs), Bellevue (if you like skyscrapers, that's second after Seattle, and it's close to where the really rich people like Bill Gates live). If I were Amazon I'd be looking at having these cities bid against each other, and maybe even scattering buildings among multiple cities.
A significant fraction of Amazon's workers are commuting into Seattle from these nearby cities anyway. I know people who ride the bus into Seattle to work at Amazon, and would love it if Amazon moved closer to them.
If the Seattle City Council makes the pain threshold high enough, Amazon can and will pull out of Seattle.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
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!
Warning: This signature may offend some viewers.
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....
Yeah, Amazon will never leave. Why, if they were planning that, first they'd have to figure out how to open up a second headquarters somewhere more conducive, right? They'd never even consider that!
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Right, 'cause that's going to pass muster at any level of our court system.
You know the Seattle City Council isn't an oligarchy, able to just do anything they want, right? It has to actually be legal and within their limited powers?
How about instead they just pass a law saying you personally need to take care of every homeless person in Seattle. Problem solved, and just as legally, with negative impacts to only one single person instead of all the people who benefit from and/or work for Amazon!
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
"Seattle is nudging Amazon by taking more and more."
There, fixed that for you...
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
$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.
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.
Sorry, but under the US Constitution, local and state jurisdictions cannot impose exit taxes.
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."
But it's burnt! And stale! C'mon, everyone loves burnt stale coffee. Right?
Yeah, Amazon will never leave. Why, if they were planning that, first they'd have to figure out how to open up a second headquarters somewhere more conducive, right? They'd never even consider that!
They're expanding but giving no indication that they're leaving.
Seattle is proposing a $275 tak per worker per year. How much do you think it costs to move a worker from Seattle to Texas even if you can persuade them to move?
It makes no financial sense to leave
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It's not drivel. I live in Micronesia and homeless Americans from Seattle, LA, SF and San Diego are wandering around all over here. Many hangout in our one small library where they use the toilet and sleep between the book shelves. And yes, the cities paid for their tickets and sent them here.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Freedom is a human right. Pre-sentient distributed cybernetic entities (corporations) have no human rights. They are legal fictions, creatures of the state. They exist to serve us, not the other way 'round.
There are other companies that would expand in Seattle if it wasn't so hard to find office space because Amazon has leased some much of the prime downtown space.
Also, corporate bullies need to be told where to go: don't let the door hit you on the way out, Bezos. Amazon could afford this without a problem, they just don't want to pay.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
I believe that every winter Alaska sends their homeless to Seattle.
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
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.
See "skid row". Seattle will have their own soon enough.
Oh dear ... SJW business finds that it doesn't like the high taxes that come from the governments that ... it itself favors.
Except Oklahoma and Arkansas are not low tax states. Florida, New Hampshire and Texas however are.
And Esp. FL and TX plenty of firms are moving to. You are correct that taxes aren't everything, but when they become onerous to the point of putting the firm at a competitive disadvantage. Then at some point the costs involved with moving are lower than staying.
But ... but ... lefty snark! Deliverance, or something!
I agree in principal that if the expense of doing business in Seattle gets too high Amazon will move. That said this head tax seems like an extremely light bit of straw for them to be shrieking about. Amazon would likely lose more money just breaking lease agreements than paying the head tax for years. I suppose they could move gradually but even then it's not like moving offices is an expense free endeavor. You have to pay for moving and assembling all the equipment. Some stuff will get broken as a part of the move. And of course there is the lost productivity that comes with large scale disruption of your workforce.
Lucky 10000: They've had one for over a century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
~ C.
it's not a matter of moving workers. If they start hiring only in (say) Texas or Georgia, then their workforce will shrink in Seattle. People leave jobs all the time - and with amazon's corporate culture, who stays there more than 2 years anyway?
That wasn't what she said, and you have no experience with 1970s Britain do you?
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....
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 !!
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!!!
Legality doesn't matter if they can make Amazon waste billions in legal defense. Large corporations do it on an equivalent scale to the little guys all the time, they deserve a taste of their own medicine.
You can impose a very large tax with deductions in the future, effectively an exit tax.
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
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.
Progressives will never be satisfied with your pittance. There will be exponentially more pressing problems to solve. Homelessness, landscaping the median of roadways, too many gnats, etc. They'll bleed you dry given the chance.
Nice crystal ball you've got there. You might consider replacing the batteries in it, though -- Toy R Us went out of business a long time ago. Once the charge falls too low the results are just confused and stupid.
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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
You're welcome to try to devise such a scheme; you'll find that it is not "effectively an exit tax".
In fact, in essence, that's what high tax states are already trying to do, and it is why people are leaving in the first place. If I pay a million dollars to Seattle and then get $100k deductions every year for the next ten years, I am a lot worse off than if I had invested that million dollars.
I was thinking more in terms of refunds - e.g. the corporation pays heavy taxes, if they stay they get it all back (the state invests it for a year and takes the interest,) if they leave they don't get it back.
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.
So, as I was saying If I pay a million dollars to Seattle and then get $100k deductions every year for the next ten years, I am a lot worse off than if I had invested that million dollars. That is, the whole point of starting a business is to get a return on a capital investment. Under your scheme, the state takes my capital and gives me nothing back for it. What possible reason would I have to start a business in such a state?
Furthermore, even if that were the scheme, as soon as the state pays me back my money, what would keep me from leaving? Or if my business grows enough that $1 million doesn't matter anymore, what would keep me from leaving then? Not only can't the state pay me back (because it would lose its leverage), to keep its leverage, it actually has to keep demanding more and more money from my business.
And for what? To start a business in places like California and Seattle, torn apart by inequality, social problems, racism, intolerance, and bigotry? Places that waste taxes for excessive pay and benefits for a bloated public sector? I don't think so.
Furthermore, even if that were the scheme, as soon as the state pays me back my money, what would keep me from leaving?
You don't get it back until the next year and you get charged it for existing even a day there.
So, as I was saying, Not only can't the state pay me back (because it would lose its leverage), to keep its leverage, it actually has to keep demanding more and more money from my business [as it grows]. Hence my point: your scheme doesn't amount to an "exit tax" and it won't work. If you still don't understand why, you need to sit down and think it through more carefully.
Have the state hold it in a trust the company controls toward the public good or similar and reaps the benefits of (most corporations of that scale donate to charities to save on taxes.)