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You're backpedaling. Previously, you said: > I thought they didn't pay anything until this January Now that I've pointed out three ways they pay for SF city i

by raldi 13y ago

You're backpedaling. Previously, you said: > I thought they didn't pay anything until this January Now that I've pointed out three ways they pay for SF city infrastructure, you're moving the goalposts. > Google is primarily located in Mountain View But they still have thousands of desks in their San Francisco office space. Also, every employee on those shuttles is either paying SF property tax or paying rent that, in part, goes to paying SF property tax. They also pay state and local sales taxes, which also go towards public infrastructure.

dalke 13y ago
Indeed! But more out of ignorance than backpedaling. I'm apparently 7 years out of date, since the SF office opened in October 2007. bizjournals.com says 2,500 seats, which is 2nd place after Salesforce at 4,000. Tied for 3rd is Lucasfilm and Twitter, with 1,500 each, and Zynga in 4th with 1,300. (Take those numbers with a grain of salt. I see others say that Twitter has 2,000 employees in SF.) Regardless, my questions stand: 1) why compare a company's taxes to an "average person"'s taxes, instead of to the citizenry as a whole, 2) just how much does Google bring into the city in direct taxes, compared to the private citizens? 3) is that sufficient compensation for how the company uses the street infrastructure? Yes, of course the employees on those shuttles are paying taxes. The full analysis would need to look at who would living there if there were no buses, and the level of taxes they pay in that case. For example, the buses are subsidized transport that provide an effective untaxable salary increase, which is a tax shift away from the city. Fuel cost alone is $10/day/vehicle, and TCO is $48 using AAA's estimate of $0.6/mile. SuperShuttle charges $17 to get to SFO, so $10/day is deliberately low-balling it. This means that someone making $80K/year from Google/Mtn View, with subsidized transport, gets an effective $2,500+/year raise, and can outbid someone in the city making $81K/year. In which case, the city ends up with lower taxes. I never said this wasn't complicated, only that there are reasonable arguments for why some people could consider the "buses are better than ..." thesis "having no sound basis (as in fact or law)".

by raldi 13y ago

dalke 13y ago

Indeed! But more out of ignorance than backpedaling. I'm apparently 7 years out of date, since the SF office opened in October 2007. bizjournals.com says 2,500 seats, which is 2nd place after Salesforce at 4,000. Tied for 3rd is Lucasfilm and Twitter, with 1,500 each, and Zynga in 4th with 1,300. (Take those numbers with a grain of salt. I see others say that Twitter has 2,000 employees in SF.) Regardless, my questions stand: 1) why compare a company's taxes to an "average person"'s taxes, instead of to the citizenry as a whole, 2) just how much does Google bring into the city in direct taxes, compared to the private citizens? 3) is that sufficient compensation for how the company uses the street infrastructure? Yes, of course the employees on those shuttles are paying taxes. The full analysis would need to look at who would living there if there were no buses, and the level of taxes they pay in that case. For example, the buses are subsidized transport that provide an effective untaxable salary increase, which is a tax shift away from the city. Fuel cost alone is $10/day/vehicle, and TCO is $48 using AAA's estimate of $0.6/mile. SuperShuttle charges $17 to get to SFO, so $10/day is deliberately low-balling it. This means that someone making $80K/year from Google/Mtn View, with subsidized transport, gets an effective $2,500+/year raise, and can outbid someone in the city making $81K/year. In which case, the city ends up with lower taxes. I never said this wasn't complicated, only that there are reasonable arguments for why some people could consider the "buses are better than ..." thesis "having no sound basis (as in fact or law)".