Do you support Kshama Sawant's head tax proposal? (Seattle, Vancouver: home, construction)

[mhays25]

I'm normally a tax-n-spend liberal. I vote yes for everything. But yes Sawant and crew are bat**** crazy, and with malicious intent. She's about tearing down the system, and it's entirely based on academic theory, not the real world.

Seattle has been piling on fees that all big growing companies pay. Every new tower pays millions for height bonuses and millions for the new "linkage" fees. They also pay sales tax for construction, which is tens of millions. Other states/cities charge none of these, and even give tax breaks! The other places value jobs and tax base. We also charge all of this for residential towers, and most of it for residential lowrise. Housing prices are loosely tied to development costs, so this has created a new balance point that costs every buyer and renter.

Not owners of course. The whole system could have been written by property owners...they want to make it harder to build anything that would compete with their buildings.

For disclosure I own a condo and work in construction, so I'm biased to build more and to build less.

[wutitiz]

Originally Posted by Beernik

I agree that this is going to be implemented as a payroll tax. Which means is going to come out of our pockets, not out of the company’s pocket.

Being new to Washington and even newer to Seattle, what I see from a lot of by the governments here is the “We have to do something and this is something” mindset.

There isn’t a whole lot of “Is this the best way to raise revenue? Is this even a good way to raise revenue? What is the exact project we are going to implement with the revenue?”

I mentioned this point in post #1, but did not really explain. This tax, like any payroll tax, will come out of the pockets of employees, even though the employer will write the check. One thing economists are pretty good at is 'tax incidence.' This is from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which was set up by the congress to provide non-partisan analysis of legislation.




https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/fi...xRates2006.pdf

Originally Posted by CBO

Who Pays Taxes?


CBO assumes—as do most economists—that employers’ share of payroll
taxes is passed on to employees in the form of lower wages than would otherwise
be paid. Therefore, the amount of those taxes is included in employees’ income, and
the taxes are counted as part of employees’ tax burden.

The basic reasoning is that the employer only cares how much it costs to retain the employee's services, not whether the money goes to the worker or the government. Suppose the employer decides Jill's services are worth $20/hour. Then Sawant comes along and says, Joe Employer, you owe $0.26/hr for having Jill on staff. Joe Employer is going to say ok, now Jill is only worth a $19.74/hr pay rate to us.

The "employer's share" of any payroll tax (including social security) amounts to a bookkeeping fiction, a sleight of hand. Sawant's tax will come entirely out of the workers' pockets. The only reason Amazon has a dog in the fight is that this will make it harder for them to attract talent in Seattle.

[Rombus]

Originally Posted by wutitiz

Standard economic analysis is that a tax like this (essentially a payroll tax) ultimately comes out of the employees' pockets, not the employer. This is the assumption the CBO adopts for all studies of such taxes. It's hard to tell whether the tax would be overall regressive or progressive. It depends on the income levels at the 585 companies. If they are higher than average, the tax could be progressive. If not, then not.

Agreed. Employers will look at the cost of the tax and find some way to get all or part of it back from the employees. Perhaps raises will be a bit lower, or the new sick pay benefit will be watered down, or a new facility will be opened on the other side of the Seattle city limits. Or, maybe even in Renton, or GASP! the Eastside.

Is the 20 million dollars limit indexed to inflation?

If not, it will slowly suck more and more companies into paying the head tax.

[illtaketwoplease]

this is what progressive liberalism buys you - more taxes.

[Beernik]

Originally Posted by wutitiz

I mentioned this point in post #1, but did not really explain. This tax, like any payroll tax, will come out of the pockets of employees, even though the employer will write the check. One thing economists are pretty good at is 'tax incidence.' This is from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which was set up by the congress to provide non-partisan analysis of legislation.

I know and I agree. I’d go further and say that I wouldn’t be surprised if it explicitly shows up as an itemized tax on pay stubs. You worked 80 hours this period, you pay $20.80 to the City of Seattle.

[mhays25]

Originally Posted by illtaketwoplease

this is what progressive liberalism buys you - more taxes.

Taxes are usually ok (I like my country...basic citizenship and patriotism here). But counterproductive taxes like this are a bad idea.

[bergun]

Can't help but to keep an eye on this topic since as of now, EIGHT people here actually voted "yes" for this tax... Wow, simple wow!!

I'm sure that one of the eight was Sawant herself since I can't see why in heck would anybody who works in Seattle thinks it's a good ideal to add another tax on themselves for the City Council to wasta on whatever useless project they can dream of.

I just hope the Mayor of Seattle will do the right thing tomorrow since some most peoel

[tommy64]

It wouldn't be so bad if Sawant would drop the charade and just say "We are too incompetent at dealing with the city's problems thus far, Amazon has all the money in the world so we wanna take some from them, and if they resist we will label them as the bullies that need to be stood up to".

When you clear away all the window dressing, that's what this stunt amounts to.

[RotseCherut]

Originally Posted by bergun

Can't help but to keep an eye on this topic since as of now, EIGHT people here actually voted "yes" for this tax... Wow, simple wow!!

I'm sure that one of the eight was Sawant herself since I can't see why in heck would anybody who works in Seattle thinks it's a good ideal to add another tax on themselves for the City Council to wasta on whatever useless project they can dream of.

I just hope the Mayor of Seattle will do the right thing tomorrow since some most peoel

If she vetoes the tax, she will be at odd with the communists in the city, who make up the majority of Seattle's voting block. The people who help make the money in the city, the big businesses, conservatives, capitalists and other productive members of the city are not the ones who have the voting power. That turns Seattle into somewhat of a basket case. But, at the end of the day, votes are more important than money ,as if you don't get the votes you won't be holding any political office.

Sawant and her crew of commie scum will drive themselves off a cliff, but they will have no problem bringing the mayor with them.

I actually think it is 50/50 she will veto the vote, because she is new to the mayor office of Seattle and the voters who elected her did so thinking she would help redistribute the wealth, house, feed and give dope to the homeless and be a good socialist progressive liberal. If she goes against Sawant and the Council she is now considered and evil capitalist. ON the other hand, if she goes along with it, she alienates Amazon and all of Seattle's largest companies and will probably be seeing a huge cut in her salary in the long run, along with the rest of city government as all the money makers flee the city. Then there is the issue of alienating all the businesses who were making a good amount of money building Amazon's new offices, as well as all the other job cuts in various industries that will result in Amazon scaling down its operations in Seattle and very possibly relocating, even if it is just in small increments.

[bergun]

Can't help but to keep an eye on this topic. Anyway, as of now, SIX people here actually voted "yes" for this tax... Wow, simple wow! And I thought that this was a no-brainer since they're so many negatives attached to this failed ideal, both short AND long term for the PEOPLE of Seattle.

I'm sure that one of the six individuals had to be Sawant herself since she's crazy and stuck in some fantasy world where pure socialism/communism really works. As for the other five, I'm shocked that they could be conned into drinking the kool-aid that Sawant AND the City Council is trying to hand out.

I'm pretty sure that these five people are Sawant's stooges who always stand BEHIND her holding those stupid *** slogan signs in red.

I just hope the Mayor of Seattle will stand up to the City Council and do the right thing by vetoing this failed ideal. She, the mayor, needs to be a real leader on this one issue since the negative direction Seattle is attempting pivoting to is happening on her watch. The way I see it, she can be a true leader and regain balance within the city or just be another politician and go with the flow, even if it's a bad one.

I can't help but to think that the city council, led by Sawant, who is married to a millionaire, is trying to turn Seattle into a two-class system... The super rich and the homeless poor. By destroying the struggling working middle-class, which she claims to support.

If somebody here really supports this ideal, please and I'm being totally sincere, please tell me why since "I" can't see any positives with this new tax.

One last thing. Sawant, if you're reading this, please stop using the term "Big Boss" in a negative way. The way "I" see it, YOU are now one of those "Big Bosses" you claim to despise... Basically, in an odd "Seattle" way, You are now what you hate... This would be really funny, if her actions didn't hurt the average working man and woman in the Seattle area.