Seattle council passes jumpstart tax on large employers | Hacker News Reader

Seattle council passes jumpstart tax on large employers

seattletimes.com

3 pointsgavin_gee9 comments

I'm not going to comment on the pro's and con's of this tax, but rather want to discuss the implications. With COVID forcing many employers and employees to prove out the model of remote working, isn't the net of this tax going to accelerate employees to move from Seattle, leaving the city worse off without the reinvestment of their salaries back into the local communities, effectively creating a modern day Detroit with the "wealth donut" spreading out and away from the center of the city?

As a Seattle resident, I’m not convinced that the council doesn’t want that outcome in their revolutionary hearts. An angry underclass is already their power base.

It does seem that the divide is growing between two fundamental groups in Seattle. Unfortunately one group is mobile and the other not so much.

Mountlake Terrace (10.5% sales tax), Edmonds (10.4% sales tax), Lynnwood (head tax[1]), Bellevue and other cities that are on the periphery of Seattle have equal or higher taxes.

Seattle had a head tax up until 2008, if a minor increase in tax like this is going to stop hiring of employees, then our zone based business commuter tax scheme would have already been that death knell [2]

1 - https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/city-of...

2 - https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/transportation/metro/employ...

(Edited to reflect the response's article link)

One can hardly compare a $93-$105 per employee head tax to a much higher income tax.

None of the cities I listed charge that little in head tax: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-businesses...

This measure is progressive taxation on earnings over $150k a year, if anything its a boon for small and medium businesses in Seattle.

These large companies have driven up rent and gentrifed our neighborhoods while paying less in taxes than small and medium businesses, meanwhile our tax burden is still much lower than California.

My objection isn't the tax per se, but an utter lack of faith in the city government to spent it wisely. From the anti-Amazon rants, it's about punishing them and anyone else successful, with any resultant cash being a 2nd order effect.

My partner spent many years analyzing area homeless programs and Seattle has done so much poorer than King County. Giving them more money isn't going to fix anything.

Sawant and friends are hardly going to improve matters with their profound insights - Pol Pot is not a good model. I personally heard one of her speeches to Boeing machinists where she literally yelled at them to take over their factory and produce airliners for the people. (They'd probably do better than the 737MAX...)

From the article: "The council also passed a high-level spending plan Monday. The money from the new tax will be allocated to coronavirus economic relief this year and preserving city services next year, the plan says. Starting in 2022, the revenue will fund affordable housing, community-led development, local business assistance and Green New Deal investments."

About 800 businesses will be affected. The tax rates are far from exorbitant. The businesses can certainly afford to pay them, and the need is self-evident.

Seattle has certainly done poorly for homeless people. Under the old guard it has spent a lot to have police push them around the city, and done very little else. Nothing visible except tent cities. Anything beats nothing.

Despite trying to avoid this facet of the discussion in my original post, this response is where the argument becomes irrational: "businesses can certainly afford to pay them" is not a valid argument to justify a tax.

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