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This is only true in the broadest possible sense, where "taxes", "government" and "streets" are considered collectively without regard to federal, state or loca

This is only true in the broadest possible sense, where "taxes", "government" and "streets" are considered collectively without regard to federal, state or local jurisdiction. But in the U.S., jurisdiction matters a lot. For example, there is (apparently) a Google bus stop at the 18th and Dolores Streets in San Francisco. Dolores Street is a local street, which means it is the responsibility of the City of San Francisco. Maintenance of that street is thus paid for primarily with local and fees taxes collected within the City. Specifically property taxes, business license taxes, local sales taxes, and charges for local services. None of the taxes that you mentioned Google paying would directly fund the maintenance of Dolores Street. Google does pay some of these local taxes, because they have a small office in San Francisco. But the purpose of these shuttles is primarily to transport people outside of San Francisco. It's the City of Mountain View that benefits (from a tax perspective) from these shuttles. That disconnect is at the heart of the complaint: that San Francisco taxpayers are shouldering the burden, while not accruing the benefits.

raldi 13y ago
> Google does pay some of these local taxes, because they have a small office in San Francisco 350,000 sqft is not small. http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/07/google-epanding-at-hills-plaza-in.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/07/google-...
- dalke 13y ago
  It's small relative to the Googleplex, which has 2 million sq. ft, and will be 3.1 million sq. ft next year. It's small relative to the number of people who commute from SF to Google by private bus. ("more than 3,500" in 2012, says http://www.sfbg.com/2012/04/18/private-bus-problem; http://www.sfbg.com/2012/04/18/private-bus-problem; I can't find newer numbers in all the noise, but it seems that more commute to MV than work in the SF office.) It's small relative to the market. That is, there's some 84 million sq. ft. of office space in SF. https://www.cassidyturley.com/DesktopModules/CassidyTurley/Download/Download.ashx?contentId=3182&fileName=San+Francisco+Office+Market+Snapshot+Q4+2013.pdf https://www.cassidyturley.com/DesktopModules/CassidyTurley/D... . The vacancy rate is 8%. So Google has under 0.5% of the occupied office space in SF. To double check, the biggest employers are the city/county (25,000), UCSF (20,000), Wells-Fargo (8,200), SF school district (8,200), and Gap (6,000). See http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2014/01/top-5-largest-san-francisco-employers.html?s=image_gallery http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2014/01/top-5-l... . The Wells Fargo Bank headquarters building alone is 640,000 sq. ft. I agree that it's mid-size were it a company primarily based in SF, but for most of the relevant metrics, it's small.

raldi 13y ago

> Google does pay some of these local taxes, because they have a small office in San Francisco 350,000 sqft is not small. http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/07/google-epanding-at-hills-plaza-in.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/07/google-...

dalke 13y ago
It's small relative to the Googleplex, which has 2 million sq. ft, and will be 3.1 million sq. ft next year. It's small relative to the number of people who commute from SF to Google by private bus. ("more than 3,500" in 2012, says http://www.sfbg.com/2012/04/18/private-bus-problem; http://www.sfbg.com/2012/04/18/private-bus-problem; I can't find newer numbers in all the noise, but it seems that more commute to MV than work in the SF office.) It's small relative to the market. That is, there's some 84 million sq. ft. of office space in SF. https://www.cassidyturley.com/DesktopModules/CassidyTurley/Download/Download.ashx?contentId=3182&fileName=San+Francisco+Office+Market+Snapshot+Q4+2013.pdf https://www.cassidyturley.com/DesktopModules/CassidyTurley/D... . The vacancy rate is 8%. So Google has under 0.5% of the occupied office space in SF. To double check, the biggest employers are the city/county (25,000), UCSF (20,000), Wells-Fargo (8,200), SF school district (8,200), and Gap (6,000). See http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2014/01/top-5-largest-san-francisco-employers.html?s=image_gallery http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2014/01/top-5-l... . The Wells Fargo Bank headquarters building alone is 640,000 sq. ft. I agree that it's mid-size were it a company primarily based in SF, but for most of the relevant metrics, it's small.