San Francisco Voters Approve New Taxes For Wealthy CEOs and Tech Companies
The Guardian, Nov. 5, 2020.
In an effort to address economic disparity laid bare by the coronavirus pandemic, San Francisco voters overwhelmingly approved several tax measures targeting property owners and big businesses with CEOs paid far higher than their average workers.
Under the new law, any company whose top executive earns 100 times more than their average worker will pay an extra 0.1% surcharge on its annual business tax payment.
If a CEO makes 200 times more than the average employee, the surcharge increases to 0.2%; 300 times gets a 0.3% surcharge and so on.
Voters also agreed to sweeping business tax changes that will lead to a higher tax rate for many tech companies, and a higher transfer tax on property sales valued between $10m and $25m.
“We’re not gonna shed any tears if penthouse dwellers have to cough up,” the San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters wrote in its voter guide.
The results “show that San Franciscans are concerned about growing economic inequality”, city Supervisor Matt Haney, the author of the measure titled the Overpaid Executive Tax, said on Wednesday. “The very wealthy are gaining more and more. They’ve gotten much richer during the pandemic, while everyone else has remained stagnant.
“We need the wealth that has been generated in the city to be shared more broadly with workers and residents,” he said.
Critics call the surcharge a blatant attempt at redistribution of wealth and criticized raising business taxes in the middle of a recession...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/05/san-francisco-voters-approve-new-taxes-wealthy-ceos-tech-companies
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