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> Expanding their offices puts costs on existing city residents. It's all well and good that tens of thousands of new units to house these workers are being bui

> Expanding their offices puts costs on existing city residents. It's all well and good that tens of thousands of new units to house these workers are being built, but those units also require extra infrastructure funding. Property taxes and permits are designed to raise the funds needed to pay for infrastructure. Amazon pays them. According to the Seattle Times (1): > Amazon entities that own Seattle property are the largest and fifth-largest individual property tax payers in the city, according to government filings. At the regular rate applicable to the company’s home base in South Lake Union, that would yield a tax bill of roughly $27 million. The company also directly pays state and city business and occupation taxes, which tax the portion of Amazon’s sales attributable to in-state customers. If new construction or other activities generate costs for the city, then they should tax those activities accordingly, not complain about or discourage the activity. Seattle is capturing significant revenue this way, by its own account (2), and its tax base has been rising faster than population: > Seattle has captured an outsized share of the region’s growth during the recovery. Seattle has been the focal point of the region’s growth during the current recovery. This is reflected in taxable retail sales data (the tax base for the retail sales tax), one of the few relatively current measures of economic activity available at both the county and city levels. Over the five-year period 2010 - 2015, taxable retail sales increased by 52% in Seattle, compared to gains of 34% in the remainder of the King and Snohomish Counties, and 30% in the rest of the state, i.e., outside of the two counties (see Figure 4). Most of Seattle’s relative strength is due to a 123% increase in construction. > Seattle’s strong rebound from the recession has been supported by the growth of Amazon, other technology businesses, and business and professional service firms. Employment growth at these businesses, along with the current popularity of in-city living, has boosted the demand for office space and housing in the city, spurring a construction boom. (1) https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-paid-250-million-in-washington-state-and-local-taxes-in-2017-source-says/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-paid-250... (2) https://www.seattle.gov/financedepartment/17adoptedbudget/documents/revenueoverview.pdf https://www.seattle.gov/financedepartment/17adoptedbudget/do...

vkou 8y ago
> Property taxes and permits are designed to raise the funds needed to pay for infrastructure. Amazon pays them. According to the Seattle Times (1): The share of property taxes that Amazon, and its employees pay do not cover the costs of building out new infrastructure to support them. It's basic mathematics. Let's say that you and four of your friends live in a 5-bedroom house. Let's say that you all pay an equal share of rent, maintenance, etc. Let's say that I decide to move into your house... And demand that we knock down an exterior wall, and build a sixth bedroom, and a second bathroom, to accommodate me (Because everyone needs a bedroom! And one bathroom doesn't cut it for 6 people - it barely supported 5!) And insist that all six of us split the cost of this construction equally. You should be happy about this - the rent-payer base has increased! Now a sixth person is chipping into paying the groundskeeper to mow the lawn. Never mind the $83,333 construction bill that the five of you had to front. It's bollocks, and it's the situation Seattle is currently in. Existing residents are expected to pick up the tab for new people moving into their neighbourhoods. Yes, taxable activity is rising faster then the cost of population, but so is the infrastructure bill. It's a lot cheaper to maintain a five-bedroom house in a steady-state, then to build an extra bedroom in it. It's a lot cheaper to maintain the city's existing infrastructure, then to expand it to meet this population growth. The only solution is making it extremely expensive to upzone commercial spaces (Which will result in shenanigans - like packing more employees into less space), or by taxing tech firms directly.
- closeparen 8y ago
  Seattle did not fall from the sky. These arguments were presumably valid at every phase of its growth. What’s special about now?
  - vkou 8y ago
    It's more expensive to build the same infrastructure today then it was in 1960 for a huge number of reasons, none of which have anything to do with Seattle policy. As density increased, the infrastructure we need today is more expensive, even if the cost of construction stayed the same. Before all land within city limits was developed, the city could charge large fees for subdivisions. Generally, American city infrastructure is financed by such fees. There aren't very many subdivisions happening anymore. Lastly, the rate of population growth was slower, and did not create a housing crisis. All of the above can be stomached through when you don't have exploding rents and homeless populations -despite the unprecedented levels of residential construction the city's seeing.

vkou 8y ago

> Property taxes and permits are designed to raise the funds needed to pay for infrastructure. Amazon pays them. According to the Seattle Times (1): The share of property taxes that Amazon, and its employees pay do not cover the costs of building out new infrastructure to support them. It's basic mathematics. Let's say that you and four of your friends live in a 5-bedroom house. Let's say that you all pay an equal share of rent, maintenance, etc. Let's say that I decide to move into your house... And demand that we knock down an exterior wall, and build a sixth bedroom, and a second bathroom, to accommodate me (Because everyone needs a bedroom! And one bathroom doesn't cut it for 6 people - it barely supported 5!) And insist that all six of us split the cost of this construction equally. You should be happy about this - the rent-payer base has increased! Now a sixth person is chipping into paying the groundskeeper to mow the lawn. Never mind the $83,333 construction bill that the five of you had to front. It's bollocks, and it's the situation Seattle is currently in. Existing residents are expected to pick up the tab for new people moving into their neighbourhoods. Yes, taxable activity is rising faster then the cost of population, but so is the infrastructure bill. It's a lot cheaper to maintain a five-bedroom house in a steady-state, then to build an extra bedroom in it. It's a lot cheaper to maintain the city's existing infrastructure, then to expand it to meet this population growth. The only solution is making it extremely expensive to upzone commercial spaces (Which will result in shenanigans - like packing more employees into less space), or by taxing tech firms directly.

closeparen 8y ago
Seattle did not fall from the sky. These arguments were presumably valid at every phase of its growth. What’s special about now?
- vkou 8y ago
  It's more expensive to build the same infrastructure today then it was in 1960 for a huge number of reasons, none of which have anything to do with Seattle policy. As density increased, the infrastructure we need today is more expensive, even if the cost of construction stayed the same. Before all land within city limits was developed, the city could charge large fees for subdivisions. Generally, American city infrastructure is financed by such fees. There aren't very many subdivisions happening anymore. Lastly, the rate of population growth was slower, and did not create a housing crisis. All of the above can be stomached through when you don't have exploding rents and homeless populations -despite the unprecedented levels of residential construction the city's seeing.