Twitter to SF: Our SF Headquarters Depends on Tax Break (San Jose: lease, neighborhood)

[18Montclair]

[LEFT]Interesting to see how the city responds.

They hinted about moving down to Brisbane earlier.

Twitter said they have signed a tentative deal to relocate its headquarters to the Market Square building at 1355 Market St., but the deal is contingent on the Board of Supervisors signing off a proposed payroll exemption for the area.


1355 Market Street
http://assets.bizjournals.com/sanfra...uare_5.jpg?v=1

“Twitter has signed a letter of intent with the Shorenstein group to lease a large block of space at the historic Furniture Mart building on Market and 9th Streets,” said Ali Rowghani, chief financial officer of Twitter Inc., in a letter to Mayor Edwin Lee. “This LOI is contingent on the Board of Supervisors’ approval of the payroll tax exemption.”

Read more: Twitter: Headquarters deal on if San Francisco passes tax break | San Francisco Business Times

[/LEFT]

[slo1318]

I have no problem with that. The city will more than make it back, with high paying jobs. It looks like a tax that makes the city non-competitive even within the state boundaries... Maybe this could start a precedent.

[yeahthatguy]

Always an issue of taxes w/ this state... The thorn in everyone's behind whose paying attention.
Going to be a great thing for business/America once creative people sprout up hubs in lower cost centers in the U.S. Will negate the need for companies located here to offshore a good %'age of the companies jobs to india/etc to reduce overall employee costs :
> Locate 1/2 or less in expensive CA
> Offset the costs by placing the other half in the cheapest place in the world (hint : not in the U.S)

Small amount of winners. Bigger amount of losers for the overall country.

[slo1318]

Great. SF approves it.....

San Francisco lawmakers approve Twitter tax break - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110405/ap_on_hi_te/us_twitter_tax_break - broken link)

[Shope]

So SF will give tax breaks if your business is something "cool" like Twitter? Or does this now set a precedent for companies that are considering leaving?

[slo1318]

I'd like to see them repeal it totally, it makes SF uncompetitive with all of the suburban cities, and San Jose. All Twitter had to do was move down the peninsula.

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by Shope

So SF will give tax breaks if your business is something "cool" like Twitter? Or does this now set a precedent for companies that are considering leaving?

Well, technically it applies to every business that relocates to that specific neighborhood-which is currently very blighted and in need of fresh capital investment by companies.

[humboldtrat]

Geez!! if you lower taxes, it will encourage businesses to move in.

What is the lesson here?

[bmw335xi]

I support the tax breaks, especially in that part of town.

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by humboldtrat

Geez!! if you lower taxes, it will encourage businesses to move in.

What is the lesson here?

Lower taxes, not eliminate them completely.

It seems short of zero taxes, NeoCons will always be up in arms which is so twisted.

Futhermore, we've been doling out incredibly generous tax breaks to massive corporations and they HAVE NOT been creating all the jobs that are supposedly going to trickle down.