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Thread: Seattle City Council releases plan to tax businesses, fund homelessness help

  1. #1

    Seattle City Council releases plan to tax businesses, fund homelessness help

    Seattle City Council members have finally released draft legislation for a new tax on large employers that would raise $75 million next year to address homelessness.
    They say the tax on companies such as Amazon could build 1,780 new low-income apartments over five years and improve the lives of people on the street.
    Four of the council’s nine members have put their names to the bill released Friday and a fifth has expressed strong support.
    They say some of the businesses driving Seattle’s economic boom are also — by attracting high-wage employees to the city — driving up rents and home prices.


    “Seattle is a city of great prosperity that has experienced tremendous growth of its economy and population,” the draft legislation says.
    “However, this growth and prosperity has directly contributed to the rapid increase in the number of individuals and families experiencing homelessness.”
    Unveiled after weeks of conversations, the legislation would create a tax of 26 cents per Seattle employee-hour on companies that gross at least $20 million per year in the city.
    There are about 500 such companies, representing an estimated 3 percent of city businesses, according to council staff. Nonprofits would be exempt.
    The employee-hours tax — sometimes known as a “head tax” — would apply in 2019 and 2020. In 2021, it would be replaced by a 0.7 percent payroll tax on the same category of companies.

    More at: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle...lessness-help/
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

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    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

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  3. #2
    And what happens when you create a homeless market?


    You create more homeless customers.... and so on... and so on.....
    FJB

  4. #3
    They can stay in Starbucks.
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    ...I believe that when the government is capable of doing a thing, it will.
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    which one of yall fuckers wrote the "ron paul" racist news letters
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    Zippy's posts are a great contribution.




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  5. #4
    The way they are handling the homeless in Seattle is hopeless. Throwing enormous amounts of tax money at the problem through housing projects while the homeless could care less and are finding their own housing arrangements. Legislators continue to not learn and are ramping up these efforts indefinitely as tens of millions of taxes are going towards this wasted effort.

  6. #5
    Bleeding heart liberals. That's what they used to call people like this. They are like crazy old ladies with a house full of cats and cat $#@!. No matter how much food they put out, the problem just doesn't go away. And they are baffled.
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
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    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

  7. #6
    When I lived near there long ago I think the state tax rate was already around nine percent .

  8. #7
    Canada is paying for this through their trade with the US.
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    Pinochet is the model
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    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
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    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    Bleeding heart liberals. That's what they used to call people like this. They are like crazy old ladies with a house full of cats and cat $#@!. No matter how much food they put out, the problem just doesn't go away. And they are baffled.
    Yep, when I was a kid, I used to have a neighbor who left his basement window open so the neighborhood cats could get in to eat. I actually earned money keeping the cat food bowls filled when he was out of town.



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  11. #9
    I guess those businesses will not be hiring any of the homeless.
    Last edited by euphemia; 05-15-2018 at 04:17 PM.
    #NashvilleStrong

    “I’m a doctor. That’s a baby.”~~~Dr. Manny Sethi

  12. #10
    Meet the next Detroit...

  13. #11
    I wonder if any of these businesses that will be extorted will experience a decrease in sales due to increased levels of random throat stabbings or hepatitis, cholera and dysentery cases from $#@!, piss and hypos in the street caused by subsidizing homelessness?

  14. #12
    A new employment tax proposed by the Seattle City Council would charge roughly $500 per employee based in the city. And though it would only apply to the city's largest companies, many of them are complaining to the press - some with good reason - about how the tax would discourage employment and ultimately damage the city's economy.
    The tax would only apply to businesses earning $20 million in revenue within the city limits - a group that includes roughly 585 companies, about 3% of the total number operating in the city, according to CNNMoney.

    Businesses would be required to pay 26 cents per man hour per employee worked within the city limits, excluding vacation pay and sick time.
    To what we imagine would be the delight of the Trump administration, Amazon would bear the brunt of the new tax. The e-commerce giant would be forced to contribute some $20 million annually on behalf of its nearly 45,000 employees in Seattle. Of course, Amazon will have a difficult time arguing that it can't afford the tax after it smashed expectations in its latest quarterly earnings report. And with the city facing an unemployment rate of 3.8%, even lower than the nationwide rate of 4.1%.
    The city says it would use the money to build affordable housing and also provide emergency shelter services to at-risk and homeless individuals.
    But Amazon told CNNMoney that it has a better plan to help the homeless.
    Amazon, which declined to comment on the proposal, notes that it already contributes economically in many ways to Seattle. For example, it will provide a permanent location for a shelter in one of its new office buildings by 2020. It would be run by the nonprofit Mary's Place, which already had temporary use of two vacant Amazon buildings to shelter the homeless since 2016.
    Starbucks did not respond to a request for comment.
    Prosperous big businesses can in turn generate a lot of economic activity and revenue for their host city. And they may donate goods, services or money to critical social causes.
    But the co-sponsors of the bill note that a major cause of homelessness is the higher cost of housing that results when more workers move to a city for jobs that pay more than long-time residents have been earning. And the demand to build affordable housing doesn't keep pace.
    But city council members have apparently been ignoring pleas from Safeway, which operates 21 grocery stores in the city. The company said that if the tax is passed, it will be faced with a dilemma: Either raise prices or consider closing stores, according to Q13 Fox.
    The tax would threaten stores that are in many cases the only resources in under-served neighborhoods - something that would turn those neighborhoods into food deserts.
    It’s been billed as a tax on the rich, only levied on business with revenue of $20 million or more annually. But Safeway contends that the tax would end up hurting the city’s poorest families.
    Currently, there are 19 Safeway stores and two Alberstons in the Seattle city limits. Albertsons is the parent company of Safeway.
    In two communities, Rainier Beach and Othello, it is the only mainstream store in the area.
    Chelle Jackson, the store director at the Safeway in Rainier Beach, told Fox that her store would likely be forced to close if the tax doesn't spare grocery stores.
    "I grew up about five blocks up the street from here," said Jackson. "It’s the only store that’s survived the generations around here."
    [...]
    "It’s not about our company being in bad shape, it’s about losing stores in communities in Seattle who need them," said Osborne.
    The problem is that while Safeway stores earn more than $20 million a year, their margins are razor-thin, so the tax would have a disproportionate impact.

    More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...ery-closures-0
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by euphemia View Post
    I guess they pretty much businesses will not be hiring any of the homeless.
    Huh?
    "The Patriarch"

  16. #14
    Seattle sucks, bad. But you can say that about most cities now. Tacoma is much better in comparison but I wouldn't want to live there either.

    In fact all the smaller cities in this State are much better than that cesspool.
    Last edited by Origanalist; 04-30-2018 at 10:35 PM.
    "The Patriarch"

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by euphemia View Post
    I guess they pretty much businesses will not be hiring any of the homeless.
    Unless they can join a union.
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

    Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
    It's all about Freedom

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Origanalist View Post

    In fact all the smaller cities in this State are much better than that cesspool.
    Smaller is better.
    Less is more.

    I have never seen a Big City that did not suck.
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

    Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
    It's all about Freedom



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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by pcosmar View Post
    Smaller is better.
    Less is more.

    I have never seen a Big City that did not suck.
    Truer words were never, um, posted.
    "The Patriarch"

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Mach View Post
    And what happens when you create a homeless market?


    You create more homeless customers.... and so on... and so on.....
    exactly, no incentive to work. or at least work to full potential.

    We're being governed ruled by a geriatric Alzheimer patient/puppet whose strings are being pulled by an elitist oligarchy who believe they can manage the world... imagine the utter maniacal, sociopathic hubris!

  22. #19
    Amazon has halted development of a new 17-story building in Seattle (that will create 7,000 jobs), threatening to ditch the plans altogether unless the city withdraws a proposed new tax to fund help for homelessness programs.
    Drew Herdener, vice president of the e-commerce behemoth, also said the firm may not occupy space in another skyscraper currently in development in the city, choosing instead to sublet it to another firm.
    “I can confirm that pending the outcome of the head tax vote by City Council, Amazon has paused all construction planning on our Block 18 project in downtown Seattle and is evaluating options to sub-lease all space in our recently leased Rainer Square building."
    The Daily Caller's Kyle Perisic notes that the so-called "head tax" would charge 26 cents per employee per hour for Seattle-based companies with $20 million or more in annual sales, affecting 585 of Seattle’s largest businesses.
    There are more than 45,000 Amazon employees in Seattle.
    As RT reports, Seattle expects to raise an extra $75 million under the plans, the majority of which would go to affordable housing, in an effort to combat the rampant homelessness which has reached crisis point in the city, with 169 deaths recorded across the King County area last year.
    It is estimated that Amazon’s tax obligation under the proposal would be around $39 million.
    The council will vote on the proposal on May 14.

    More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...s-be-withdrawn
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  23. #20
    F*CK Big Business. F*CK the government. F*CK the homeless.
    All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.
    -Albert Camus

  24. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by otherone View Post
    F*CK Big Business. F*CK the government. F*CK the homeless.
    And F*CK Seattle.
    “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” --George Orwell

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  25. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by kcchiefs6465 View Post
    And F*CK Seattle.
    The F*CKING symbiotic, codependent, relationship between the corporations and government, and the useless retards who vote for them.
    All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.
    -Albert Camus

  26. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by otherone View Post
    F*CK Big Business. F*CK the government. F*CK the homeless.
    Why yeah!

  27. #24
    Update: Amazon is not alone in its anger at Seattle's plans. Starbucks took a moment away from signaling its virtue and lashed out at the city's new tax. John Kelly, senior vice president, Global Public Affairs & Social Impact at Starbucks, said in a statement.
    "This City continues to spend without reforming and fail without accountability, while ignoring the plight of hundreds of children sleeping outside.
    If they cannot provide a warm meal and safe bed to a five year-old child, no one believes they will be able to make housing affordable or address opiate addiction.
    This City pays more attention to the desires of the owners of illegally parked RVs than families seeking emergency shelter."
    Ouch! How long before we hear a new round of boycott starbucks?
    * * *
    Despite Amazon's decision to halt construction on a new tower and threats to sublease space in another newly built downtown skyscraper, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and the City Council have passed a controversial "homelessness tax" that will require the city's largest companies to pay an additional $300 a year per full time employee based in the city.

    And while the law has been significantly watered down from the version introduced last month by the city council, Jeff Bezos still isn't happy about it.
    To wit, the company said in an official statement that it's still "apprehensive" about expanding the number of employees it has based in the city, as Fortune reports.
    "We are disappointed by today’s City Council decision to introduce a tax on jobs," Amazon said in a statement. "While we have resumed construction planning for Block 18, we remain very apprehensive about the future created by the council’s hostile approach and rhetoric toward larger businesses, which forces us to question our growth here."
    Amazon has resumed construction on its 17-storey Block 18 tower, but we imagine the company now has even more incentive to shift employees to its planned HQ2, though, as CNNMoney warned in a recent piece, Amazon's strident reaction to the proposed tax in Seattle might give some of its suitor city's reason to reconsider (as foolish as that might seem from an economic development perspective).
    The law will require employers who generate more than $20 million in gross revenues within the city limits to pay roughly 14 cents per man hour per employee every year - which comes out to roughly $275 per employee. Roughly half of the money collected by the tax will be paid by Amazon.
    So, at the end of April, the Seattle City Council released draft legislation that would force companies with revenues of over $20 million in the city to pay 26 cents for each hour worked by a Seattle-based employee, or roughly $540 per head per year. This "head tax" was to apply over 2019 and 2020, generating $86 million a year for social programs, before turning into a 0.7% payroll tax. (The annual proceeds of the tax were originally calculated at $75 million before the council revised its estimates.)
    However, with Mayor Jenny Durkan threatening to veto the tax because she was concerned about its impact on employment, the measure had to be watered down to pass.
    In the end, the version that passed - unanimously - will see large employers pay 14 cents per head per hour, or $275 per head per year. The tax will now generate $47 million a year, and it will run for five years, rather than turning into a payroll tax after a two-year run.
    For what it's worth, Amazon says it has independently done more to ease homelessness than the city government, touting a corporate initiative to donate space to shelter 200 homeless people in one of Amazon's new buildings.
    The company said it recently contributed $40 million to a city managed fund for affordable housing.
    As Fortune points out, Amazon isn't the only company angry about the tax, which will impact more than 500 businesses. Starbucks, which hosts its headquarters in the city, slammed the city council, calling it incompetent and incapable of taking care of the city's homeless.
    Three-fifths of the money raised will go to building new, affordable housing, while the rest will fund emergency services for the homeless.
    Amazon wasn’t the only company left grumbling. Starbucks also responded, with public affairs chief John Kelley saying Seattle "continues to spend without reforming and fail without accountability, while ignoring the plight of hundreds of children sleeping outside."
    "If they cannot provide a warm meal and safe bed to a five year-old child, no one believes they will be able to make housing affordable or address opiate addiction," Kelley said.
    And while that statement should of course be taken with a grain of salt given that it's obviously in Starbuck's interest to do everything it can to pressure the city, the company's spokesman may have a point.
    The roughly $50 million raised by the tax would go toward affordable housing initiatives that help the homeless find permanent shelter - while some of the money would go toward an emergency response program for people at risk of homelessness.
    But the city has other options that might be more effective at alleviating the city's housing shortage, like changing restrictive zoning regulations.
    Instead, by passing the tax, Seattle's mayor and city council have only provided further proof that the city is willing to do whatever it can to combat homelessness, short of actually building more homes.


    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...melessness-tax
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment



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  29. #25
    Hopefully they can turn Seattle into a Mecca for the homeless. Surely once they have homeless people from all over the country heading to Seattle, the city planners will be able to fully reveal the genius of such tax policies.
    Quote Originally Posted by timosman View Post
    This is getting silly.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    It started silly.
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    I part ways with "libertarianism" when it transitions from ideology grounded in logic into self-defeating autism for the sake of ideological purity.

  30. #26
    One week after passing a head tax on major businesses located in Seattle, including Amazon, Microsoft and Starbucks, the Seattle City Council is now considering an enormous property tax on the people who work at those businesses. According to Q13 FOX, King County homeowners already saw a bump of 17% in their property taxes in 2017, but City Council members want property taxes increased even more:
    Council members Lorena Gonzalez and Rob Johnson are sponsoring the measure, which states the council wants to lift the limit on regular property taxes in order to levy additional taxes. … In 2014, Seattle voters approved a $58 million levy allowing low-income kids to go to preschool for free. Since 2015, the city says the program has allowed affordable or free preschool to 850 families. Now the city wants to send hundreds more to preschool. Mayor Jenny Durkan’s Office is also pushing to send high school graduates to community college for free.
    The property tax would amount to, on average, more than another $250 per year for homeowners.

    More at: https://www.dailywire.com/news/30981...ontent=2241115
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  31. #27
    Seattle city leaders said Monday they will work to repeal a tax on large businesses just one month after unanimously approving the measure to help pay for affordable housing and homeless services.
    Mayor Jenny Durkan and seven of nine council members said in a joint statement that "it is clear that the ordinance will lead to a prolonged, expensive political fight over the next five months that will do nothing to tackle our urgent housing and homelessness crisis."
    "We heard you," they said, adding that the City Council would consider legislation this week. A special meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday. The measure would need five votes to pass.
    The announcement of a pending repeal comes just days before Thursday's deadline for the campaign working to overturn the tax to turn in signatures to qualify the referendum for the November ballot.

    More at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...611-story.html
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  32. #28
    Where did they get such retards for city govt ?
    Do something Danke



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