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> This is one reason head tax opponents were able to so easily spin the head tax as a “tax on jobs,” Also, the fact that it was a tax for every employee. If yo

> This is one reason head tax opponents were able to so easily spin the head tax as a “tax on jobs,” Also, the fact that it was a tax for every employee. If you want to encourage companies/people to do something (like hire people), you normally start by not adding extra taxes to that. Not that adding tax is always a bad thing, but the mechanism of this one was pretty poorly thought out.

bobthepanda 8y ago
Payroll taxes are quite a normal thing, and it makes sense, since employees do add some non-zero amount to the amount of services that need to be provided by a given government even if they don't reside there. The stupidity was that it was a flat, $500 tax, which is not a big deal if you're paying your tech bros six figures, but becomes quite a big deal if you have a lot of minimum-wage earning grocery baggers (who were among the professions and corporations that would've been most impacted)
- s2g 8y ago
  It raises the cost (excluding everything but salary, which is unrealistic) of a full time minimum wage worker by 0.9% per year. Add in the additional costs of an employee and that percentage drops even further. It was also targeted at the top 3% of companies or something. This was a paltry tax. If you want to convince me otherwise I want hard numbers, not "oh but the low profit minimum wage employers".
  - bobthepanda 8y ago
    At the 2021 $15 min wage, it would've hiked the cost of a part time worker working 29 hours a work by 2.2%. (29 hours is the limit before one qualifies for employer health insurance under federal law, and IIRC neither Seattle nor Washington have any stricter laws.) So you'd be severely dis-incentivizing part time hiring. .9% is not a trivial tax increase. If sales taxes went up by .9%, that would be an undue burden on the poor. And a flat $500 head tax is more regressive than even a flat percentage tax on sales; making it only apply to the top X companies doesn't stop it from being regressive.
s2g 8y ago
Actually it was thought out and picked as the only progressive option they had. Now it’s property or sales tax. Hurray.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

bobthepanda 8y ago

Payroll taxes are quite a normal thing, and it makes sense, since employees do add some non-zero amount to the amount of services that need to be provided by a given government even if they don't reside there. The stupidity was that it was a flat, $500 tax, which is not a big deal if you're paying your tech bros six figures, but becomes quite a big deal if you have a lot of minimum-wage earning grocery baggers (who were among the professions and corporations that would've been most impacted)

s2g 8y ago
It raises the cost (excluding everything but salary, which is unrealistic) of a full time minimum wage worker by 0.9% per year. Add in the additional costs of an employee and that percentage drops even further. It was also targeted at the top 3% of companies or something. This was a paltry tax. If you want to convince me otherwise I want hard numbers, not "oh but the low profit minimum wage employers".
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  At the 2021 $15 min wage, it would've hiked the cost of a part time worker working 29 hours a work by 2.2%. (29 hours is the limit before one qualifies for employer health insurance under federal law, and IIRC neither Seattle nor Washington have any stricter laws.) So you'd be severely dis-incentivizing part time hiring. .9% is not a trivial tax increase. If sales taxes went up by .9%, that would be an undue burden on the poor. And a flat $500 head tax is more regressive than even a flat percentage tax on sales; making it only apply to the top X companies doesn't stop it from being regressive.

s2g 8y ago

Actually it was thought out and picked as the only progressive option they had. Now it’s property or sales tax. Hurray.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]