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Also, the tax oddly targets Stripe and Square. People don't talk about this very much. But it seems extremely unfair that Stripe/Square pay way more tax than S
by ergocoder 7y ago
Also, the tax oddly targets Stripe and Square.
People don't talk about this very much. But it seems extremely unfair that Stripe/Square pay way more tax than Saleforce in terms of ratio to their revenues. (I don't recall the numbers. Anyone?)
Jack Dorsey tried to raise this point multiple times. But people just kept screaming that he didn't care about homeless :S
- natalyarostova 7y agoNeither does San Francisco. They just pretend they do.
- henrikschroder 7y ago> But people just kept screaming that he didn't care about homeless JFC, it's not because of a lack of money that SF has a problem with homeless people, and it's not that more money would make the problem magically go away.
- taurath 7y agoI’ll be honest though. I’m not sure new housing can actually work to lower prices, with all the incentives for real estate locked towards ever increasing prices. Maybe over decades, while losing the entire feel of the city?
- paulie_a 7y agoThey'll be plenty house as talented people continue to flee. Meanwhile juniors flock. If a CEO of a sizable Corp can't get by without a roommate something is wrong. I certainly wouldn't work there for less than a half plus million a year. Shit weather and fog I'd rather work in North Dakota.
- dmode 7y agoThis is surely exaggerated right ? I know CEOs of large startups who live in mansions in Woodside, Berkeley, Mill Valley etc
- paulie_a 7y agoMy sample size is small but a company that raised 40 million and the CEO is considering leaving sv because his wife need to make rent with a roommate is not a great sign of the real estate. Sv isn't special. People are going to other tech hubs which are sprouting like crazy. Sv was when it made products. But sass can be done anywhere. People are leaving sv and housing prices are the reason. It's going to lead to brain drain. Why bother with that congested hell hole when you can live anywhere else and cut your cost of living by 50 percent. Your average founder is 30 and they are not into partying. Sv is for 20 year olds
- Bombthecat 7y agoI doubt that prices lead to brain drain. Sure there is a guy or two who will walk away. But I know more then a few people who are like: more then 2/3 of my pay to live in the city? No. Problem! Living in the city is super important!
- paulie_a 7y agoI've seen it first hand with incredibly talented people that hated living in the city. There are plenty of tech hubs elsewhere. Sv isn't special. 2/3 of your pay is a bad decision unless you are being paid 600k+
- usaar333 7y agoSounds like that CEO might be paying himself too little. Fwiw, housing prices (rents) have barely budged in much of the Bay Area for the past 4 years. If the exodus hasn't already happened, I doubt it will.
- dmode 7y agoI have a hard time believing this story. You can get 1-bedroom apartment around 3k in SF or neighboring areas. You can afford that with entry level wages
- paulie_a 7y ago
- lacker 7y agoThe feel of San Francisco is already lost, when a small single apartment runs $3000 a month.
- baby 7y agoAnd homeless are everywhere.
- AdieuToLogic 7y ago> > The feel of San Francisco is already lost, when a small single apartment runs $3000 a month. > And homeless are everywhere. Maybe a $3k per month "small single apartment" contributes to "homeless are everywhere."
- baddox 7y agoWhen people say “homeless are everywhere” regarding SF, they’re probably referring to the extremely troubled people who are conspicuously doing drugs or screaming incoherently on the streets. I don’t think those people would suddenly be fine if only the SF apartments were $500 a month instead of $3000. Of course, there are a lot more homeless people in SF than the very conspicuously unwell people I mentioned. There are also probably larger scale effects that together contribute to high rents, high income inequality, drug abuse, lack of medical care, etc. But there’s a lot more to say than that SF’s homeless problem is because rent is too high.
- timerol 7y agoHomelessness is a very complicated issue, but it would absolutely be better for all people currently without homes if rent was that cheap. Many people who currently are living on the street or in shelters would be able to find stable housing. This would free up resources and care which could focus on those people who need it most.
- droopyEyelids 7y agoI'm curious about the ratio of those unwell folks who are native to the area compared to those who are transplants. I can certainly imagine a 'homeless pipeline' where the children of the parents who get priced out of housing end up doing drugs on the street, but I also know about bussing the homeless and homeless moving to SF because they don't want to deal with a serious winter. According to Wikipedia: As of 2014, the city is believed to have approximately 7,000 homeless residents. As of 2015, approximately 71% of the city's homeless had housing in the city before becoming homeless, while the remaining 29% came from outside of San Francisco
- baby 7y agoIt’s a national issue and SF is a symptom. Instead of pushing for healthcare, housing, more aids, and so on, people are just blaming it on mental health.
- adventured 7y agoYour premise doesn't align with the facts. Poverty and homelessness are near all-time lows in the US right now, comparable to Canada. You wouldn't know that by looking at the streets of San Francisco (or Los Angeles for that matter). At a national level homelessness has declined dramatically since 2000. While San Francisco's problem has only kept getting worse. The US as a whole isn't seeing the homelessness problems that San Francisco is. While San Francisco was doing nothing, the US implemented the Housing First program under the Bush Administration. That policy was continued and amplified by the Obama Administration, to extraordinary results: homelessness declined through the great recession, rather than skyrocketing as would have been predicted (especially coming out of a housing bust). Unsheltered homelessness is down 20% since 2007. Total homelessness is down by 15% since 2007. https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/Main/images/hudno.18-147.jpg https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/Main/images/hudno.18-147.jp... 2010 > Obama builds on Bush success to help the homeless https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2010/0622/Obama-builds-on-Bush-success-to-help-the-homeless https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2010/... 2013 > The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development reported that the number of the chronically homeless declined by 30% between 2005 and 2007. You might have expected the numbers to spike again when the financial crisis hit but no. Since 2007, the number of chronic homeless has dropped another 19%. https://www.cnn.com/2013/04/29/opinion/frum-less-homelessness/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2013/04/29/opinion/frum-less-homelessnes... 2008 > On a cold January morning in 2001, Mel Martinez, who was then the new secretary of housing and urban development, was headed to his office in his limo when he saw some homeless people huddled on the vents of the steam tunnels that heat federal buildings. "Somebody ought to do something for them," Martinez said he told himself. "And it dawned on me at that moment that it was me." So began the Bush administration's radical, liberal — and successful — national campaign against chronic homelessness. https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article24505888.html https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article... 2013 > The Astonishing Decline of Homelessness in America https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/the-astonishing-decline-of-homelessness-in-america/279050/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/the-ast...
- austenallred 7y agoBenioff knows exactly what he’s doing.
- abalone 7y agoThe gross receipts tax was Jack Dorsey's idea. As CEO of Square he lobbied for and received a switch to the gross receipts tax in 2012.[1] He only started complaining about "fairness" when it became about helping the homeless. [1] https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/SF-Citi-video-plugs-in-tech-Prop-E-3930793.php https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/SF-Citi-video-plugs-...
- ergocoder 7y agoYou merely mentioned fairness, but you didn't mention which aspect. Jack has been vocal about wanting to pay tax by revenue (or whatever way) to the city. The point that he objects is that Square pays tax more than Saleforce, when Saleforce's revenue is way way more than Square's. This is an example of US political debate. Everyone immediately accuses the person of being evil (i.e. not wanting to pay tax and of hating homeless). But nobody actually answers why it makes sense for Square to pay more tax than Saleforce.
- gamblor956 7y agoIt makes perfect sense. Square has the one office in SF, so essentially all of its gross proceeds arise from that office and are subject to the tax. Salesforce has offices everywhere and a substantial amount of its revenues come from the work of employees outside of San Francisco. This revenue should not be subject to the SF gross revenues tax (and it would be illegal for SF to tax such income). The question boils down to this: is the disparity in taxes reasonable given the SF-based gross proceeds generated by Square and Salesforce?
- matahwoosh 7y agoYou're incorrect, Square has non-SF offices, too. I think @nrp has put it well in his comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21342101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21342101. Square is categorized differently than Salesforce by SF tax law and pays a different proportion of taxes than Salesforce. EDIT: corrected username