In reply to Toyman01 :
The problem is that Washington doesn't have a personal or corporate state income tax relying instead on the fairly mediocre 6.5% sales tax, very mediocre B&O tax, and some utility taxes.
Plus Amazon receives some incentives they negotiated for being the dominate employer in the area. When you get the kind of boom in a low tax environment we've seen with Amazon something needs to give to continue to provide essential services. Which is why I was, and I still am, opposed to the special deals that we talked about a few pages ago.
I understand what you're saying but as Gameboy pointed out the aversion to paying taxes is higher than the typical business.
Toyman01 said:
I guess my question is why should the business pay any taxes beyond income taxes.
If your city decided to charge a head tax on people living in your household, would that be a problem? Would you still live there or would you look into moving. That's pretty much what Seattle has done. Personally, I'd be looking to move. If the city my office is in decided to do that, I would move immediately.
Since Amazon is already considering a new location, I can see them expanding it even more than already planned, just to stop any expansion of their Seattle offices.
If I was a city/state looking to expand my taxable income by billions. I'd be on the horn to Amazon now letting them know that a head tax would never happen.
The trouble is that no place with unsustainably low taxes can be a nice place for people who need to earn a living from local jobs to live in...not for long, anyway. Businesses may move in, and the situation may even look good on paper, but it comes at a cost, as you can see from the examples of Seattle, and moreso, San Francisco.
In reply to The0retical :
Then I would say the proper way to handle this is to institute a state income tax to pay for what the citizens want. But that might actually cost them votes, so they decided to go take money from the group that can't vote.
That's a poor way of doing business if you ask me.
In reply to Toyman01 :
Oh implementing an income tax is absolutely the correct thing to do, you won't get any argument from me on that front. Unfortunately it's more popular with the voters go after the entity with the big revenue. It would be political suicide to even suggest taxing everyone and the highlights downside of the electorate allowing "Politician" to be a career.
The head tax targets businesses with greater than 20MM in revenue. So the bar is low enough that it doesn't make it look like it's specifically going after Amazon but it's very obviously doing so.
Who here has actually seen the number of tents and wanderers in Seattle? I was surprised.
Who here has lived in Seattle for 20 years to comment on if this is new or not? Comments please?
Seattle’s homeless population is a combination of s few factors.
1. They’re a liberal city so they take care of people with good services.
2. The climate allows for nearly year round living outside I did notice a seasonality to the people who were living outside So I the summer tons of them with a lot less in the winter
3. Saw a small uptick in the number of people after the marijuana legalization thing.
While the issue of housing cost is a problem. I never thought it was a driver for the homelessness there.
Advan046 said:
Who here has actually seen the number of tents and wanderers in Seattle? I was surprised.
Who here has lived in Seattle for 20 years to comment on if this is new or not? Comments please?
I am neither a scientist nor a social worker, but the numbers of homeless I see every day are much higher than I've ever seen in the 20+ years I've been here.
In reply to Grtechguy :
1K jobs that will pay well and have good benefits if you can stand it. high turnover is the name of the game.
STM317
SuperDork
11/5/18 12:08 p.m.
T.J.
MegaDork
11/5/18 12:16 p.m.
My guess is it will end up in NoVa based on the insidious nature of today's tech companies being intertwined and partners with the Feds in trying to rule the world.
In reply to STM317 :
I'm just glad they skipped us.
slefain
PowerDork
11/5/18 12:25 p.m.
Considering the crap that our moron Lt. Governor Cagle pulled on Delta last year, I don't blame Amazon for blowing off Atlanta.
Ian F
MegaDork
11/5/18 12:46 p.m.
In reply to T.J. :
Swamp critters do tend to nest near their food source.
I'm betting NYC+Dallas. One in a tech hotspot city, and one within easy moving distance of a tech hotspot city in a state Bezos personally likes. That's as much surprise as you should expect.
T.J. said:
My guess is it will end up in NoVa based on the insidious nature of today's tech companies being intertwined and partners with the Feds in trying to rule the world.
Also Nova is a gigantic tech hotspot. Probably third (in terms of tech employment) after Silicon Valley and San Francisco.
STM317
SuperDork
11/6/18 10:04 a.m.
In reply to STM317 :
Why choose one when you can double dip those sweet incentives?
It probably makes more sense to do it that way anyway. 50k people with the skill sets they require are probably a hard ask from a single location.
In reply to The0retical :
The cynic in me suspects this means "take ALL the money from two cities and deliver HALF the promise."
In reply to John Welsh :
That's pretty much what I think of it too. Just ask Wisconsin how that sweet incentive package is working out with Foxconn.
The issue here is that the cities will still likely bend over backwards to offer the same package for half the initial promise. Race to the bottom.
Meanwhile, when there is a HQ1, a HQ2, and a HQ3 Amazon will likely continue to threaten each city with, "give us X+ or we'll just move it all to the remaining 2 locations."
I'm happy to be "not it".
pheller
UltimaDork
11/6/18 3:30 p.m.
It could also give them long term leverage as well.
If they moved to a city wholesale, and that city had some drastic changes in the future, whether politically or economically, they wouldn't want to leave, but they also might lose some advantages.
If they split between cities and something goes sour, they can continually threaten to leave town because leaving wouldn't be as hard when you've already got one foot out the door.
Texas , they talked Toyota to move there from the Los Angeles area ,
STM317
SuperDork
11/7/18 6:00 a.m.
John Welsh said:
In reply to The0retical :
The cynic in me suspects this means "take ALL the money from two cities and deliver HALF the promise."
The truly cynical individual could say that NYC and DC were predetermined landing spots and that the search was just a way to keep Amazon in the news for a year, while simultaneously gathering tremendously valuable data from major cities across the country as they put their cards on the table regarding possible incentives, future infrastructure and spending plans, etc. This information is stuff that Amazon's competition doesn't know and Amazon can exploit on their quest to profit from every aspect of our lives.
