
3 SF supervisors move to put tech tax on November ballot - ChrisBland
http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/3-SF-Supervisors-move-to-put-tech-tax-on-November-8330876.php
======
bko
> ... but, in fact, San Francisco spends tremendous amounts of money on the
> problem. The city is allocating a record $241 million this fiscal year on
> homeless services, $84 million more than when Mayor Ed Lee took office in
> January 2011. But the city struggles to track exactly how all that money is
> being spent and whether it’s producing results. Eight city departments
> oversee at least 400 contracts to 76 private organizations, most of them
> nonprofits, that deal with homelessness.

Perhaps the city should re-think on the effectiveness of such programs. My
biggest problem with the programs is that they are indirect and empower
bureaucracies rather than the people they are purported to serve. For
instance, housing subsidies are incredibly inefficient. The programs (in NYC
at least) often provide a housing subsidy in a very popular neighborhood. So
for instance, market rent could be $4,000 but subsidized rent would be $1,000
for a net transfer of $3,000. If the landlord had an option of paying < $3,000
and being able to rent the apartment at market rent, he would surely prefer
that option. As an alternative, if that family received a direct $3,000
subsidy, the family would likely only use a portion of those funds to pay for
better housing. Too many transfer programs that allocate a particular good
have that problem and are highly inefficient. I doubt an extra $100 mm would
provide any meaningful changes to many.

[0] [http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-
record...](http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-
record-241-million-on-homeless-6808319.php)

~~~
WalterSear
Furthermore, a staggering 1 in 4 homeless (29%) in SF were bussed in by the
homeless service industry from other areas, and then ejected on to the streets
for bad behaviour[0] or other reasons.

I can understand why each step of this process (bringing people to services,
ejecting those that are unmanageable in order to maintain the order required
to help the others. As a systematic process, however, it's obscene: it
protects the industry while fanning the flames of the crisis, which, in turn,
builds support for more funds for homeless non-profits.

[0]"Ten percent (10%) of respondents reported they were living out of state at
the time they lost their housing. Nineteen percent (19%) reported they were
living in another county in California. Six percent (6%) reported they were
living in Alameda County at the time, 3% San Mateo, 2% Marin, 2% Contra Costa
and 1% Santa Clara County."

[http://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/sfgov.org.lhcb/files/2015%20San%...](http://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/sfgov.org.lhcb/files/2015%20San%20Francisco%20Homeless%20Count%20%20Report_0.pdf)

~~~
dragonwriter
First, your link is broken, the correct link is:
[http://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Franc...](http://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Francisco%20Homeless%20Count%20%20Report.pdf)

Second, while 71% did have homes previously in San Francisco, it does not
follow that the remaining 29% "were bussed in by the homeless service industry
from other areas". SF is known for having stronger support for the homeless,
so homeless might well actively seek to travel to SF from other areas --
that's especially unsurprising for those from other Bay Area counties, which
make up nearly half of the 29%. Second, there've been recurring cases of
cities shipping out the homeless (either in general, or indigent mentally ill,
in particular) to other jurisdictions -- including, often, SF. (This is them
being bussed by _someone_ , but not the homeless service industry.)

~~~
WalterSear
Sorry, I mixed up my numbers while digging this up again.

It's 23% - still 1 in 4 - that were in homeless shelters in SF before they
were homeless, that were formerly from elsewhere.

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tomschlick
The only way they are going to get lower housing costs in SF is to tell the
NIMBYs to go to hell and allow developers to build more housing.

~~~
objclxt
David Campos, who is proposing this tax, is against all house building. So
good luck with that happening.

Campos's policies just defy rational thought. Last year he wanted to
completely ban _any_ housing construction in the Mission[1]. At the same time
he's been actively campaigning and advocating for homelessness centers, and
declaring a "state of emergency" for the homeless in SF[2].

I honestly can't reconcile how somebody can logically say "homelessness is
terrible, we need to do something about it" followed by "we shouldn't build
any houses". He wants to have his cake and eat it: complain about how the
homeless are (in his words) "pushed into the Mission", and then refuse to
allow any homes to be built that could potentially house them (via affordable
housing requirements).

This is a man who believes[3] that the recent spate of fires in the mission is
a deliberate arson campaign by landlords to evict their tenants, rather than
the actual reason, which is many of the buildings in the Mission are a) made
of wood, b) old, and c) lack modern safety systems like sprinklers and good
alarm systems.

[1]: [http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Campos-wants-
moratoriu...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Campos-wants-moratorium-
on-new-housing-in-the-6244209.php) [2]: [http://abc7news.com/news/sf-
supervisor-declares-state-of-eme...](http://abc7news.com/news/sf-supervisor-
declares-state-of-emergency-on-homelessness/1236534/) [3]:
[http://www.sfexaminer.com/why-is-the-mission-
burning/](http://www.sfexaminer.com/why-is-the-mission-burning/)

~~~
bko
Consider the following:

> Imagine a government agency with only two tasks: (1) building statues of
> Benedict Arnold and (2) providing life-saving medications to children. If
> this agencys budget were cut, what would it do? It would cut back on the
> medications for children. Why? Because that would most likely get the budget
> cuts restored. If they cut back on building statues of Benedict Arnold,
> people might ask why they were building statues of Benedict Arnold in the
> first place. [0]

By fixing the problem by allowing more housing, the politician would be able
to extract less resources and power from the population. Never let a crisis go
to waste. Or perhaps I'm being overly cynical in characterizing the political
process.

[0] [http://www.heraldandtribune.com/oped/benedict-arnold-
statues...](http://www.heraldandtribune.com/oped/benedict-arnold-statues-not-
needed/)

------
themartorana
_" Dubbed the tech tax, the proposed November ballot measure would impose a
1.5 percent payroll tax on technology companies. That would be a big shift. In
2012, 71 percent of San Francisco voters supported a measure to eliminate the
city’s payroll tax and replace it with a gross receipts tax."_

"Hey, Bob, did you know the voters of SF reset the payroll tax to zero? We can
totally tax it now!"

------
joeblow9999
"Hey, let's inspire all these mega-successful employers in our city to move to
Oakland!"

~~~
maxcan
Sounds like a wonderful plan.. But then again, I'm a homeowner in Oakland.

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strictnein
I keep wondering if SF will be the Detroit of 2035.

~~~
superuser2
SF's position is that they were just fine before the tech companies moved in
and want to return to that state. I'm not sure this is inaccurate.

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wwweston
The general idea of taxes to support solutions to housing and infrastructure
problems seems reasonable.

Why a tech-specific tax, though? Seems like a general one would avoid the
problem of line drawing, avoid the problem of causing resentment in specific
industries, and spread the burden out more generally.

~~~
lsaferite
Seems like a good way for the city to get sued for singling out tech companies
vs. doing it across the board.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Taxation is the art of plucking the goose so as to get the most feathers with
the least squawking. It always involves singling out somebody.

------
protomyth
Looks like the answer to the classification system is:

"The measure identifies tech companies by the type of tax code they use under
the Internal Revenue Service’s North American Industry Classification System.
Companies classify themselves. They may face penalties if a government audit
finds they are misidentifying themselves."

~~~
keville
Thanks for this; am local and heard a bit about this tax yesterday but no news
outlet seemed to think this detail was as relevant as we do.

~~~
protomyth
If I was a billionaire, I would create a news site called "Who, What, Why, and
How" that answered all four questions in detail for every news item. No
opinion (Lord knows you can get that elsewhere), just sourced facts and
original documents. Pointers to previous articles via a timeline in the
sidebar.

Ahh, to dream.....

~~~
dragonwriter
The answer to "Why?" for real news items involving human action is _always_ a
matter of opinion. (Of course, you can have a "sourced fact" about someone's
opinion or claim of what the "Why?" is, but mainstream news sources usually do
that now.)

~~~
protomyth
I get what you're saying but, I'm thinking of a little simpler version of the
why. In this article we have lawmakers who have introduced a tax, and the why
is basically their opinion and reason for the introduction. You can say they
are right or wrong, but the why of the bills introduction is their beliefs.

~~~
dragonwriter
> and the why is basically their opinion and reason for the introduction.

You mean, their stated rationale for the introduction? Because their actual
_beliefs_ and their actual _reason_ for the introduction may be very
different, and often is a matter of controversy.

~~~
protomyth
Their stated rationale (since we aren't mind readers and we can only go by
statements). If they're lying, well, it happens and I guess you might find it
in a followup. Frankly, their why is often the least important thing on the
list.

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WWLink
So are they going to put the 1.5% tax on doctors, lawyers, and other rich
business people that have always been able to live in SF?

Why is it when I the nerd finally get a job where I could afford to live in SF
instead of some east bay suburb, they don't want me to live there and want to
do everything in their power to keep me from doing so? XD

