Board Sends Real Estate Transfer Tax to Voters; Drops Payroll, Parking Taxes

Well at least the more ludicrous tax schemes were dropped. I wonder how many folks pay a transfer tax on property sales over $5 million? Chris, maybe the Treasurer/Collector or Tax Assessor knows the percentage of homes in SF that are over $5 million.

Thank you Chris for bringing the straight facts and about these taxes. If I had to pay any more payroll or parking taxes to live in this great city, I would move to Sausalito. At least there I can get a good turkey deli meat...

I look forward to reading more of your work. I think we have a young Clark Kent on the rise!

JDTF, what straight facts? I was hoping that the three taxes and their benefits/down-sides would be laid out, but nothing was mentioned about them at all. All that was said is who is on who's side and how taxes in a recession don't go over too well. Same old, same old.

The gross receipts and payroll tax would lower the amount of payroll taxes paid for most businesses and apply a gross receipts tax to replace that which would impact on business classes according to their margins.

Currently, small business pays no local taxes at all. They are exempt from the payroll tax and pass through all other taxes, such as sales and property, to the customer. They also pass on fees and requirements such as Healthy SF to the customer in many instances.

Many classes of larger businesses are exempt from the payroll tax, and the gross receipts tax would have made sure that all businesses paid their fair share. As it stands, the current tax regime only captures a subset of business.

Chiu's tax measure would have only increased taxes if one sees applying taxes equitably across all classes of larger business which had been untaxed as a tax increase.

So the situation remains that San Franciscans are subsidizing businesses with our taxes, even if that business benefits significantly from the infrastructure and services we pay for.

Delightful.

-marc

The concept that "San Franciscans are subsidizing businesses with our taxes" is hard to support and generally speaks of the same re-treaded anti-corporate diatribe that the SF Bay Guardian has been running since I moved here in the 80s. The climate at City Hall in the last few years has been hostile towards business in general, which is a self-defeating attitude because that's where the bulk of revenue and job creation comes from. It's great that our Supes--who are almost completely lacking in any experience running a business--think that further taxes are an answer. Instead, I'd love to see concrete ideas for job growth and real results.