Stakes high as Seattle considers business tax for homeless

[roadmaster]

SEATTLE (AP) — Seattle’s latest tax proposal to combat homelessness takes aim at large businesses such as Amazon that have helped drive the city’s economic boom.
But the measure has sparked intense debate — even shouting matches in otherwise reserved Seattle — over who should pay to solve the housing crisis exacerbated by that growth.
The City Council is proposing a tax on employee hours to raise about $75 million a year for affordable housing and homelessness services. Nearly 600 large employers making at least $20 million in gross revenues would pay about $500 a year per worker.


Amazon, the city’s largest employer, would take the biggest hit.
Supporters insist the online retailer and others that have benefited from Seattle’s prosperity and contributed to growing income inequality and skyrocketing rents can and should pay.

Councilwoman Kshama Sawant, a socialist, said affordable housing is critically important and the council should “stand up to Amazon and Jeff Bezos’ bullying.” Construction workers chanted “no head tax” and disrupted a news conference she held last week on Amazon’s campus.
https://apnews.com/e365b4a5132d4a64a...ign=SocialFlow

[MisterVeritis]

Imagine their surprise when the largest, most prosperous companies leave.

[Tahuyaman]

Imagine their surprise when the largest, most prosperous companies leave.

Here we are calling it "the head tax". The Seattle city council has been hearing from all business people in the city. Opposition to this is as close to universal as you can get. Unfortunately the Seattle city council is dominated by genuine socialists.

Some of the biggest and most prosporous businesses won't be effected as they are not within the taxing authority of the city. Amazon is and they have made their position in opposition clear. So have many of the employees of Amazon.

[MisterVeritis]

Here we are calling it "the head tax". The Seattle city council has been hearing from all business people in the city. Opposition to this is as close to universal as you can get. Unfortunately the Seattle city council is dominated by genuine socialists.

Some of the biggest and most prosporous businesses won't be effected as they are not within the taxing authority of the city. Amazon is and they have made their position in opposition clear. So have many of the employees of Amazon.

Those who fall within the clutches of the Socialists who run the city will run away from the city.

[Tahuyaman]

Those who fall within the clutches of the Socialists who run the city will run away from the city.

They already are because Seattle is becoming a city where only the very wealthy can afford to live there.


The problem is that those who flee Seattle, bring their screw-ball ideas with them. For some reason they seem to believe that if they implement those same ideas elsewhere, they will get a different result.

[HawkTheSlayer]

They already are because Seattle is becoming a city where only the very wealthy can afford to live there.


The problem is that those who flee Seattle, bring their screw-ball ideas with them. For some reason they seem to believe that if they implement those same ideas elsewhere, they will get a different result.

Like a Pike Street, socialist ideal, export market.

[HawkTheSlayer]

.Attachment 23548Attachment 23549


Sawant should marry Bernie.

[Cannons Front]

They seem to have no limits to their desire to run businesses away.

[roadmaster]

Seattle City Council unanimously voted to tax the city's largest businesses, such as Amazon and Starbucks. The plan charges big employers about $275 per full-time worker each year, to boost funding for homelessness. Update

[Dr. Who]

While I don't think that it's the responsibility of Amazon to deal with the city's problems, this is an issue for many cities. So many jobs are vanishing and leaving people without work. Those with an education and skills have a place in today's society, increasingly those who don't are ending up on the streets and it's only going to get worse as technology keeps eliminating jobs.