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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
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.
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'
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.
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.
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.
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.
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++
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".
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.