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I'd be much more interested in helping Ron Conway restore the one week of instruction per year that's been cut because of lack of funding to SF schools, assumin

I'd be much more interested in helping Ron Conway restore the one week of instruction per year that's been cut because of lack of funding to SF schools, assuming Ron Conway cares about such things. Which, you know, he should, since schools are responsible for producing raw materials (educated young people) for the startups he invests in. The mindless drive to cut taxes (particularly taxes for the wealthy) is degrading American society. It's time to set aside "tax cut" as the universal solution to every conceivable business problem.

czDev 15y ago
I agree completely. We just gave a big tax break to Twitter (and everyone else who happened to be in the area) - I don't want to see SF city hall turn in to a mini D.C. run by business lobbyists looking for deals. This whole argument that "business is going to leave unless we cut their taxes" strikes me as just false. San Francisco's economy is booming, and there's a lot of talent here because it's a great place to live
- drusenko 15y ago
  The Twitter tax cut is very different than this. That was an actual income tax cut that the city enacted to keep Twitter in SF. This is a measure that is repealing a very poorly thought out tax on stock options that would preclude any company from going public in San Francisco. I would tend to agree with you on tax cuts -- everybody should pay their fair share -- but I disagree that keeping a poorly thought out, highly unusual and unique tax in place that would severely affect the SF economy is the right solution.
  - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
    The number of companies who failed to go public in SF because of this tax is zero. On the other hand, the number of startups that failed to get off the ground because of insufficiently educated workers is much larger.
    - drusenko 15y ago
      "The number of companies who failed to go public in SF because of this tax is zero." Do you have a citation for that, or is it just a blind assertion? The reason this is a hot button issue is that San Francisco is becoming more attractive to startups, many of which are now looking to IPO in a couple years. These startups will not be able to IPO in San Francisco if this stays the same. Most people would consider startups in San Francisco a good thing; Although, admittedly, not all people -- some people just want everything to stay the way it is. Further, education issues have no place in this discussion. Education will be impacted exactly 0% by eliminating this tax, because the city currently does not collect any revenues from it. Might the city collect more revenues in the future by keeping the tax? Absolutely not: if it keeps it, it will become literally impossible for fast-growing startups to stay in the city, and San Francisco will lose a significant amount of payroll taxes from those startups leaving. Blindly support all taxes if you will, but the facts are that San Francisco is the only major city to tax companies on employees' personal gain from stock options, that it would be untenable for any fast-growing startup to be based in SF with this tax, and that the city does not currently receive any revenue from it, so there will be no revenue to make up.
      - tptacek 15y ago
        San Francisco has been a hot location for startups --- maybe the hot location, but at least prominent in the shortlist --- for over a decade. Where's the urgency coming from?
        drusenko 15y ago
        That's just not true. All tech companies have traditionally been down south. First San Jose, then Mountain View/Cupertino/Palo Alto. Few have traditionally been based in San Francisco proper. The urgency is that this section of SF tax code was just discovered. The fear is that it will now be enforced, which would force the best SF-based companies to move.
        tptacek 15y ago
drusenko 15y ago
This is not a tax cut. San Francisco is the only major city in the US that taxes the company for an employee's personal gain on stock options. This is eliminating a tax that was very, very poorly thought out as it effectively precludes any company from going public in the city of San Francisco. A company doing an $100M IPO might effectively be required to pay all $100M raised to the city of San Francisco as tax on the stock options gains of employees. Discuss the merits of tax cuts elsewhere -- this is an obvious situation where this tax never should have been in the first place, and will be doing a considerable amount of harm to San Francisco if it is not repealed.
- jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
  If you're advocating the removal of a tax, then yes, it's a tax cut. Whether it does harm to San Francisco or not is absolutely worth discussing. Let's start by asking where the city will make up the revenues it loses from removing this tax. Or is your solution to lay off more teachers?
  - drusenko 15y ago
    San Francisco does not currently enforce this tax, and it does not currently collect any revenues from it, so there is no revenue to be made up. No one was even aware of it until it was discovered recently.
    - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
      Which makes its repeal a priority why, then?
      - drusenko 15y ago
        Because a lot of SF-based startups are looking to go public in the next few years. This has not been the case before.
        jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
Wow! Downvoted because I think keeping schools open is more important than a 1% tax cut for the rich. Real classy.
- lotharbot 15y ago
  If you want to have a discussion about school funding and tax cuts, submit a blog post or article about it. Please don't take a dump all over someone else's discussion. That's not something the HN community appreciates, which is why it tends to result in downvotes (for you and those arguing against you.) Don't complain about downvotes; change your behavior.
  - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
    You're acting as if there's no relationship between tax revenue and school funding. There quite obviously is.
    - lotharbot 15y ago
      I never denied the relationship between them. I just said that this isn't the place to have that discussion. If you want to have the discussion, submit a blog post about it.
      - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
        If there is a relationship between them, then this is certainly the place to have the discussion. It sounds like you want to have a discussion about throwing eggs while conveniently ignoring the discussion about cleaning up the mess.
        lotharbot 15y ago
        If I may torture your analogy a bit: if you're going to argue about cleaning up egg yolks splattered all over the place, talking to people who are holding plastic Easter eggs isn't going to be very productive. Whatever you might say about tax revenue and public schools in SF, it's not relevant to a discussion this particular tax (which isn't enforced, doesn't generate revenue, was never contributing to public education budgets, and whose only effect seems to be to encourage startups to form contingency relocation plans if it ever does get to be enforced.) We could be having a great discussion about tax revenue, public education, etc. But we're not, and neither is anyone else in this thread, because it's really a completely tangential topic. I would love to have the discussion, which is why I again request that you submit a blog post or article that's directly relevant rather than trying to wedge the discussion into a thread where it doesn't belong.
wankerrific 15y ago
The inclusion of stock options as part of the payroll tax is a fairly recent interpretation of the tax code in SF. While I agree with your general feeling on tax cuts, this should be seen as a new tax that should never have been implemented in the first place. The fact that city hall is specially treating some companies (Twitter) is even more odious and unfair to other startups in the city.
pbreit 15y ago
Calling this a tax cut is mis-leading because it's never been collected on IPO companies.
- daniel-cussen 15y ago
  Just because it's not enforced doesn't mean it never will be.
- jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
  Right, and if it's not really a tax, then there's really no point in repealing it, is there?
maxharris 15y ago
I don't believe that anyone's need is a valid claim on another's life. For two thousand years we've had it beaten into us that we are our brother's keeper, but this is simply false. Altruism is simply moral slavery - it is an ethical system where everyone is enslaved to everyone else. Like any other form of slavery, it's bad for the enslaved people because they are not left free to think and produce the material values needed for a flourishing life. (I shouldn't have to spell this out, but I will so that there is no danger that I might be misunderstood: I think it's just as wrong to make someone sacrifice himself to others as it is to sacrifice others to him.) If you want to educate your kids, earn your money honestly and pay out of your own pocket to educate them. If you like the idea of paying for other people's kids to go to school, no one is stopping you.
- tptacek 15y ago
  You can pay to educate kids or you can pay to police and incarcerate adults. And that's if you're otherwise willing to let them starve, and to deny them any of the myriad of other social services they'll claim. Since we clearly do not live in a country guided by your principles, this is not a particularly valuable discussion to have in this thread. If it were a simple choice between kids not going to school and people paying extra taxes, people would overwhelmingly opt for higher taxes. Your argument thus represents Conway's opposition to stock option taxes... poorly.
  - maxharris 15y ago
    I would pay to educate my own kids. What you do with yours is your own business, as long as you're not abusing them. Parents do have a legal and moral obligation to provide some education to their children, and that's it. We have universal education. Why do some of these students still go on to adopt criminal lives at the risk of going to jail? With all the money that is spent on students? All this money that wasn't spent on students over a century ago? It's simply not true that the choice is between paying for other people's kids and paying to jail them. People have free will, and basic moral facts (such as "don't steal, don't kill, don't cheat") are discoverable without any formal education, much less the awful force-fed government school kids must attend today. (Your thinking certainly reflects the mainstream. It is no accident that these schools bear striking similarities to American prisons.) America was once the greatest country on earth when it was guided implicitly by the principle I have outlined above (late 19th century). Since then, things have gotten worse, and just about any honest person will admit this (although they might not agree with me as to the cause). Ultimately, avoiding collapse and starvation will take nothing less than the discovery and acceptance of this moral system.
michaeldhopkins 15y ago
I object to the mindless drive to increase school hours! Hacker News is full of good advice about lean execution and using constraints to produce high quality work. That said, repealing a law that is apparently standing in the way of a future IPO bubble sounds like a poor idea.

czDev 15y ago

I agree completely. We just gave a big tax break to Twitter (and everyone else who happened to be in the area) - I don't want to see SF city hall turn in to a mini D.C. run by business lobbyists looking for deals. This whole argument that "business is going to leave unless we cut their taxes" strikes me as just false. San Francisco's economy is booming, and there's a lot of talent here because it's a great place to live

drusenko 15y ago
The Twitter tax cut is very different than this. That was an actual income tax cut that the city enacted to keep Twitter in SF. This is a measure that is repealing a very poorly thought out tax on stock options that would preclude any company from going public in San Francisco. I would tend to agree with you on tax cuts -- everybody should pay their fair share -- but I disagree that keeping a poorly thought out, highly unusual and unique tax in place that would severely affect the SF economy is the right solution.
- jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
  The number of companies who failed to go public in SF because of this tax is zero. On the other hand, the number of startups that failed to get off the ground because of insufficiently educated workers is much larger.
  - drusenko 15y ago
    "The number of companies who failed to go public in SF because of this tax is zero." Do you have a citation for that, or is it just a blind assertion? The reason this is a hot button issue is that San Francisco is becoming more attractive to startups, many of which are now looking to IPO in a couple years. These startups will not be able to IPO in San Francisco if this stays the same. Most people would consider startups in San Francisco a good thing; Although, admittedly, not all people -- some people just want everything to stay the way it is. Further, education issues have no place in this discussion. Education will be impacted exactly 0% by eliminating this tax, because the city currently does not collect any revenues from it. Might the city collect more revenues in the future by keeping the tax? Absolutely not: if it keeps it, it will become literally impossible for fast-growing startups to stay in the city, and San Francisco will lose a significant amount of payroll taxes from those startups leaving. Blindly support all taxes if you will, but the facts are that San Francisco is the only major city to tax companies on employees' personal gain from stock options, that it would be untenable for any fast-growing startup to be based in SF with this tax, and that the city does not currently receive any revenue from it, so there will be no revenue to make up.
    - tptacek 15y ago
      San Francisco has been a hot location for startups --- maybe the hot location, but at least prominent in the shortlist --- for over a decade. Where's the urgency coming from?
      - drusenko 15y ago
        That's just not true. All tech companies have traditionally been down south. First San Jose, then Mountain View/Cupertino/Palo Alto. Few have traditionally been based in San Francisco proper. The urgency is that this section of SF tax code was just discovered. The fear is that it will now be enforced, which would force the best SF-based companies to move.
        tptacek 15y ago

drusenko 15y ago

This is not a tax cut. San Francisco is the only major city in the US that taxes the company for an employee's personal gain on stock options. This is eliminating a tax that was very, very poorly thought out as it effectively precludes any company from going public in the city of San Francisco. A company doing an $100M IPO might effectively be required to pay all $100M raised to the city of San Francisco as tax on the stock options gains of employees. Discuss the merits of tax cuts elsewhere -- this is an obvious situation where this tax never should have been in the first place, and will be doing a considerable amount of harm to San Francisco if it is not repealed.

jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
If you're advocating the removal of a tax, then yes, it's a tax cut. Whether it does harm to San Francisco or not is absolutely worth discussing. Let's start by asking where the city will make up the revenues it loses from removing this tax. Or is your solution to lay off more teachers?
- drusenko 15y ago
  San Francisco does not currently enforce this tax, and it does not currently collect any revenues from it, so there is no revenue to be made up. No one was even aware of it until it was discovered recently.
  - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
    Which makes its repeal a priority why, then?
    - drusenko 15y ago
      Because a lot of SF-based startups are looking to go public in the next few years. This has not been the case before.
      - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago

jeffreymcmanus 15y ago

Wow! Downvoted because I think keeping schools open is more important than a 1% tax cut for the rich. Real classy.

lotharbot 15y ago
If you want to have a discussion about school funding and tax cuts, submit a blog post or article about it. Please don't take a dump all over someone else's discussion. That's not something the HN community appreciates, which is why it tends to result in downvotes (for you and those arguing against you.) Don't complain about downvotes; change your behavior.
- jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
  You're acting as if there's no relationship between tax revenue and school funding. There quite obviously is.
  - lotharbot 15y ago
    I never denied the relationship between them. I just said that this isn't the place to have that discussion. If you want to have the discussion, submit a blog post about it.
    - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
      If there is a relationship between them, then this is certainly the place to have the discussion. It sounds like you want to have a discussion about throwing eggs while conveniently ignoring the discussion about cleaning up the mess.
      - lotharbot 15y ago
        If I may torture your analogy a bit: if you're going to argue about cleaning up egg yolks splattered all over the place, talking to people who are holding plastic Easter eggs isn't going to be very productive. Whatever you might say about tax revenue and public schools in SF, it's not relevant to a discussion this particular tax (which isn't enforced, doesn't generate revenue, was never contributing to public education budgets, and whose only effect seems to be to encourage startups to form contingency relocation plans if it ever does get to be enforced.) We could be having a great discussion about tax revenue, public education, etc. But we're not, and neither is anyone else in this thread, because it's really a completely tangential topic. I would love to have the discussion, which is why I again request that you submit a blog post or article that's directly relevant rather than trying to wedge the discussion into a thread where it doesn't belong.

wankerrific 15y ago

The inclusion of stock options as part of the payroll tax is a fairly recent interpretation of the tax code in SF. While I agree with your general feeling on tax cuts, this should be seen as a new tax that should never have been implemented in the first place. The fact that city hall is specially treating some companies (Twitter) is even more odious and unfair to other startups in the city.

pbreit 15y ago

Calling this a tax cut is mis-leading because it's never been collected on IPO companies.

daniel-cussen 15y ago
Just because it's not enforced doesn't mean it never will be.
jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
Right, and if it's not really a tax, then there's really no point in repealing it, is there?

maxharris 15y ago

I don't believe that anyone's need is a valid claim on another's life. For two thousand years we've had it beaten into us that we are our brother's keeper, but this is simply false. Altruism is simply moral slavery - it is an ethical system where everyone is enslaved to everyone else. Like any other form of slavery, it's bad for the enslaved people because they are not left free to think and produce the material values needed for a flourishing life. (I shouldn't have to spell this out, but I will so that there is no danger that I might be misunderstood: I think it's just as wrong to make someone sacrifice himself to others as it is to sacrifice others to him.) If you want to educate your kids, earn your money honestly and pay out of your own pocket to educate them. If you like the idea of paying for other people's kids to go to school, no one is stopping you.

tptacek 15y ago
You can pay to educate kids or you can pay to police and incarcerate adults. And that's if you're otherwise willing to let them starve, and to deny them any of the myriad of other social services they'll claim. Since we clearly do not live in a country guided by your principles, this is not a particularly valuable discussion to have in this thread. If it were a simple choice between kids not going to school and people paying extra taxes, people would overwhelmingly opt for higher taxes. Your argument thus represents Conway's opposition to stock option taxes... poorly.
- maxharris 15y ago
  I would pay to educate my own kids. What you do with yours is your own business, as long as you're not abusing them. Parents do have a legal and moral obligation to provide some education to their children, and that's it. We have universal education. Why do some of these students still go on to adopt criminal lives at the risk of going to jail? With all the money that is spent on students? All this money that wasn't spent on students over a century ago? It's simply not true that the choice is between paying for other people's kids and paying to jail them. People have free will, and basic moral facts (such as "don't steal, don't kill, don't cheat") are discoverable without any formal education, much less the awful force-fed government school kids must attend today. (Your thinking certainly reflects the mainstream. It is no accident that these schools bear striking similarities to American prisons.) America was once the greatest country on earth when it was guided implicitly by the principle I have outlined above (late 19th century). Since then, things have gotten worse, and just about any honest person will admit this (although they might not agree with me as to the cause). Ultimately, avoiding collapse and starvation will take nothing less than the discovery and acceptance of this moral system.

michaeldhopkins 15y ago

I object to the mindless drive to increase school hours! Hacker News is full of good advice about lean execution and using constraints to produce high quality work. That said, repealing a law that is apparently standing in the way of a future IPO bubble sounds like a poor idea.