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Amazon 'Questions' Its Growth In Seattle After City Passes Watered-Down Tax to Help Homeless

Neomalthusian said:
This is very disingenuous and misleading from a municipal taxation standpoint. Municipalities collect tax revenues. Where does that money come from? The local economy, one way or another. What does that mean? It means the people that live, work, study, shop, vacation, and play there, their money ends up in the municipal government's bank account. The government then turns around and reinvests that money back into its local economy in ways that are supposed to maintain and improve the economy further.

What would happen to the city's tax revenues if Amazon, Costco, Microsoft, Starbucks, and Boeing all evacuated the city and set up their business in another state? Would the city's tax revenues stay the same, or go down? They'd go down. But HOW?!? If those companies pay zero tax, then why would the city's tax revenues go down if those companies fled?

If a municipality taxed sales but not property, one could say (kind of like you're saying) "property owners pay no tax!!!! NONE!!!" But this complaint is disingenuous because property owners do pay taxes, it's just that property isn't the thing on which taxes are calculated. If a municipality taxed property but not sales, one could say (kind of like you're saying) "consumers who buy things from our local businesses pay no taxes! NONE!!!" But this is disingenuous because many of those consumers own or rent property which generates the city's taxes. So they do pay taxes.

There is no point squawking about "companies not paying taxes" when it is obvious that the existence of these massive companies in Seattle contribute heavily to the amount of taxes the City is able to bring in each year. Which if you want know more about it, you start here. https://www.seattle.gov/financedepartment/0102Adopted/City Revenue Overview.pdf

The City collects taxes. This extracts money from people who live in and/or work in and/or visit Seattle. The money extracted from the economy is reinvested back into the local economy. If these massive businesses you squawk about not paying taxes did not do business in Seattle, the city's revenues would plummet. Therefore these companies do directly contribute to the generous tax revenues Seattle is able to raise. The people who are in Seattle because those companies are located in Seattle are the same people who pay a great deal of the tax revenues to the City.

So enough with the disingenuous squawking about companies not paying taxes.
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Hogwash. None of what you say matters one little bit. The bottom line is Amazon customers pay ALL the taxes levied against Amazon. Businesses do not pay taxes; they pass them on to the customer. That's how it works. That's how it has ALWAYS worked.
 
"If you are poor come to Seattle and we will build you an apartment and let you life in it almost free, we tax our job creators to pay for it" is not a sustainable model.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
"If you are poor come to Seattle and we will build you an apartment and let you life in it almost free, we tax our job creators to pay for it" is not a sustainable model.
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Sounds good, I think its time for me to move back into the US, and I'll go settle down in Seattle. :mrgreen:
 
Waddy said:
Hogwash. None of what you say matters one little bit. The bottom line is Amazon customers pay ALL the taxes levied against Amazon.
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Not accurate or honest. The city of Seattle collects an enormous amount of tax revenue thanks to the fact Amazon does business in Seattle.

Businesses do not pay taxes; they pass them on to the customer. That’s how it works. That’s how it has ALWAYS worked.
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Really? Businesses charge prices that cover their expenses to sustain their businesses? Oh my gosh!

Therefore what? Abolish the private sector and embrace communism? What are you even whining about?

The city of Seattle's total tax revenues are gigantically higher because Amazon does its business there. So whining about Amazon not paying taxes to the city is plainly idiotic.
 
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Neomalthusian said:
Not accurate or honest. The city of Seattle collects an enormous amount of tax revenue thanks to the fact Amazon does business in Seattle.



Really? Businesses charge prices that cover their expenses to sustain their businesses? Oh my gosh!

Therefore what? Abolish the private sector and embrace communism? What are you even whining about?

The city of Seattle's total tax revenues are gigantically higher because Amazon does its business there. So whining about Amazon not paying taxes to the city is plainly idiotic.
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I'm defending Amazon, while you're sounding idiotic. That new tax won't be paid by Amazon, it will be paid by their customers; just like every other business tax. I'm trying to make you aware that taxing business is really taxing consumers, who pay ALL taxes. Difficult concept I know, but try harder.
 
Waddy said:
I'm defending Amazon, while you're sounding idiotic. That new tax won't be paid by Amazon, it will be paid by their customers; just like every other business tax. I'm trying to make you aware that taxing business is really taxing consumers, who pay ALL taxes. Difficult concept I know, but try harder.
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Sorry if I mistook your argument. Consider my annoyance misdirected, a lot of people in Seattle, including members of its Council, are really treating its largest companies like they are the enemy, and I find that to be quite stupid.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Sorry if I mistook your argument. Consider my annoyance misdirected, a lot of people in Seattle, including members of its Council, are really treating its largest companies like they are the enemy, and I find that to be quite stupid.
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It is hubris....they keep saying "This is where people want to live so these big companies have no better choices than to pay what we demand...they are lucky to have Seattle and they know it (paraphrase)".

Actually, no.
 
The city expects the tax to raise roughly $47 million per year this way and that, somehow, this will fix the housing problem. It will go, Amazon and the world was told, for “low-income housing, homeless shelters and emergency services.”

If you are wondering how — for none of these plans is in place — you are asking the same question Amazon asked and that the city has not yet answered.

Government doesn’t work that way. Housing doesn’t work that way. Life does not work that way.

Affordable housing is notoriously difficult to create. And housing costs are impossible to control in an open economy. Eventually, the market will catch up, but, in the meantime, government can create bridges to compensate for market failures and help the most needy. That’s a complicated, subtle process
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Debiting Amazon: Seattle can?t tax housing problems away | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

I was reading that 5 years of this tax will add I think it was 5.3% to the low income housing stocks (assuming that the city government does not **** this project up, which is far from being a sure thing with their record)....for this they take a huge chance of pissing off the job creators.

This is nuts.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Sorry if I mistook your argument. Consider my annoyance misdirected, a lot of people in Seattle, including members of its Council, are really treating its largest companies like they are the enemy, and I find that to be quite stupid.
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Glad we got that cleared up. I find it amazing that Seattle still wants more when Amazon already contributes $275,000,000 to the Seattle coffers in tax money. The terrorists are the city council members who vote in this extortion. Amazon is building a second headquarters; I hope they're smart enough to go to a lower tax city and state. Then eventually move out of Seattle completely.

What I find offensive, and was commenting on, is that people say the corporations are rich and can afford to pay more; when in fact the corporations have to pass those taxes on to their customers, who usually aren't rich. If you add up all the taxes and government royalties from leasing or owning the land, from mining the resource (oil or metal for instance), through the processing, manufacturing, distribution chain to advertising, transportation, fuel (+fuel tax), insurance, retail to the final product on the shelves, with each one paying taxes which they must pass on to the end buyer, the consumer; that's often 60% or more of the cost of an item. Sometimes a lot more. And then the consumer gets hit with a 10% sales tax (my area) during checkout. Constantly raising taxes at every level of the supply chain is one cause of inflation, even though technology is inherently deflationary. (technology makes the entire supply chain more efficient, therefore cheaper).
 
Waddy said:
Glad we got that cleared up. I find it amazing that Seattle still wants more when Amazon already contributes $275,000,000 to the Seattle coffers in tax money. The terrorists are the city council members who vote in this extortion. Amazon is building a second headquarters; I hope they're smart enough to go to a lower tax city and state. Then eventually move out of Seattle completely.

What I find offensive, and was commenting on, is that people say the corporations are rich and can afford to pay more; when in fact the corporations have to pass those taxes on to their customers, who usually aren't rich. If you add up all the taxes and government royalties from leasing or owning the land, from mining the resource (oil or metal for instance), through the processing, manufacturing, distribution chain to advertising, transportation, fuel (+fuel tax), insurance, retail to the final product on the shelves, with each one paying taxes which they must pass on to the end buyer, the consumer; that's often 60% or more of the cost of an item. Sometimes a lot more. And then the consumer gets hit with a 10% sales tax (my area) during checkout. Constantly raising taxes at every level of the supply chain is one cause of inflation, even though technology is inherently deflationary. (technology makes the entire supply chain more efficient, therefore cheaper).
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Yeah I completely mistook you for complaining that Amazon doesn't contribute its fair share to the city's tax revenues. My bad.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Debiting Amazon: Seattle can?t tax housing problems away | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

I was reading that 5 years of this tax will add I think it was 5.3% to the low income housing stocks (assuming that the city government does not **** this project up, which is far from being a sure thing with their record)....for this they take a huge chance of pissing off the job creators.

This is nuts.
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What's nuts is that the Council doesn't actually care about addressing homelessness. The City isn't broke. The Council is not so desperate for money that it can use to address homelessness. There is no shortage of money. They could actually address homelessness right now if they wanted, without a need for new types of taxes.

What they're doing is intentionally allowing homelessness to fester so that they can use it as a convenient excuse for pushing other types of taxes for reasons having nothing to do with homelessness. I know Sawant is doing this. She is using homeless. She wants there to be homelessness because she needs an excuse to shove different kinds of taxes on the city and the state.
 
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Neomalthusian said:
What's nuts is that the Council doesn't actually care about addressing homelessness. The City isn't broke. The Council is not desperate for money that it can use to address homelessness. There is no shortage of money. They can address homelessness without a need for new types of taxes.

What they're doing is intentionally allowing homelessness to fester so that they can use it as a convenient thing to claim is the basis of wanting to tax corporations and pass other types of taxes that they think will cause Washington to have to change its constitution and allow income taxes. I know Sawant is doing this. She is using homeless, not worrying about it. And it would say that to her smug face.
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That is what "The taxes in Seattle are regressive, we need to take action to make them more progressive" (an actual quote I have seen I am pretty certain) is all about when it is used to argue for this tax.

The job creators hear that message loud and clear, and has them considering their options.....Seattle leadership is sure that Seattle is such a catch that they can get away with this.

We'll see.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
That is what "The taxes in Seattle are regressive, we need to take action to make them more progressive" (an actual quote I have seen I am pretty certain) is all about.
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Yes, Sawant has said that. Specifically:

“Washington state has the most regressive tax system in the entire nation,” Sawant told KIRO Radio’s Jason and Burns. “If you are a household that makes roughly $20,000 or so, then you are paying 17 percent of your income in taxes. But if you are a very wealthy household, you are paying around 2 percent in taxes.” LINK
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And you know, that's actually somewhat agreeable. It's not that crazy to admit that the effect of Washington and Seattle's tax structure is regressive relative to what it could be.

But the communist manner in which she is going about using Seattle as her means to try to get the state to change its constitution and allow income taxes is going to do permanent damage to Seattle. It already is.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Yes, Sawant has said that. Specifically:



And you know, that's actually somewhat agreeable. It's not that crazy to admit that the effect of Washington and Seattle's tax structure is regressive relative to what it could be.

But the communist manner in which she is going about using Seattle as her means to try to get the state to change its constitution and allow income taxes is going to do permanent damage to Seattle.
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Hopefully you have seen this:

https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/...h-for-an-effective-king-county-homeless-plan/

How much of this really bad work is cant and how much is wont......I dont think I agree with you that it is 0/100....I do think that when I do learn the answer I will not like it.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Hopefully you have seen this:

https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/...h-for-an-effective-king-county-homeless-plan/

How much of this really bad work is cant and how much is wont......I dont think I agree with you that it is 0/100....I do think that when I do learn the answer I will not like it.
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Task forces like this are to create the illusion that "we're doing something about this." I'm not blaming this task force for failing, I'm blaming Seattle leadership for not sending marching orders to do the basics about homelessness, including, for starters, enforcing basic laws, but instead using homelessness as an emotional appeal and excuse to push self-destructive, and sometimes even illegal, tax structures in Seattle that repel business, while publicly chastising and blaming businesses for creating the homelessness problem in the first place. That is demented in how harmful it is to a city.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Task forces like this are to create the illusion that "we're doing something about this." I'm not blaming this task force for failing, I'm blaming Seattle leadership for not sending marching orders to do the basics about homelessness, including, for starters, enforcing basic laws, but instead using homelessness as an emotional appeal and excuse to push self-destructive, and sometimes even illegal, tax structures in Seattle that repel business, while publicly chastising and blaming businesses for creating the homelessness problem in the first place. That is demented in how harmful it is to a city.
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Ya, voting in a tax that they knew for sure was illegal and would get struck down, burdening the courts with a frivolous law because "We need to do something!" ...... that is quite the ding on Seattle......
 
From my link:

Draft recommendations from the One Table task force released in early April featured items like creating 5,000 units of affordable housing across the county, training and hiring over 1,000 individuals at-risk of homelessness over two years, and establishing on-demand behavioral health services. (The draft did not, however, feature ideas for revenue to pay for the services.) Critical members of the task force found the recommendations underwhelming given the scale of the homelessness crisis.
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So 5000 units (average cost to build just one now in Seattle $300,000, and going up fast) in the county is no where near enough, this law will build 600 they say but will I say be more like 475 over the next 6 years(ish) in the city proper...and more people who claim that they need to be carried are coming everyday....a drop in the bottle this is, a gas can when a tankful is needed..... BLAH BLAH BLAH....


And this is their BIG IDEA.





And then there are the costs of doing this to your cities economic drivers....when lots of other cities would just love to have them.
 
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Hawkeye10 said:
From my link:

So 5000 units (average cost to build just one now in Seattle $300,000, and going up fast) in the county is no where near enough, this law will build 600 they say but will I say be more like 475 over the next 6 years(ish) in the city proper...and more people who claim that they need to be carried are coming everyday....a drop in the bottle this is, a gas can when a tankful is needed..... BLAH BLAH BLAH....

And this is their BIG IDEA.


And then there are the costs of doing this to your cities economic drivers....when lots of other cities would just love to have them.
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What I really despise about left wing notions of affordable housing is that housing simply is not affordable in big expensive cities, and there's no way to fake its affordability. All you can do is institute programs whereby some people who can't afford to live there are allowed to live there anyway at neighbors' expense.

There can be no such thing as housing that is affordable for low income families in places where we absolutely know housing is not affordable for low income families. Affordability in housing is a function of actual cost and actual income relative to that cost. Letting a bum live in a mansion doesn't mean the bum can actually afford anything related to living in a mansion. It's all feel-good bull**** that denies reality.
 
Neomalthusian said:
What I really despise about left wing notions of affordable housing is that housing simply is not affordable in big expensive cities, and there's no way to fake its affordability. All you can do is institute programs whereby some people who can't afford to live there are allowed to live there anyway at neighbors' expense.

There can be no such thing as housing that is affordable for low income families in places where we absolutely know housing is not affordable for low income families. Affordability in housing is a function of actual cost and actual income relative to that cost. Letting a bum live in a mansion doesn't mean the bum can actually afford anything related to living in a mansion. It's all feel-good bull**** that denies reality.
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Reality is different in UTOPIA.

All up and down the food chain now Americans are willfully ignorant and willfully living in FantasyLand.






This never ends well.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Reality is different in UTOPIA.

All up and down the food chain now Americans are willfully ignorant and willfully living in FantasyLand.

This never ends well.
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I'm able to think like a liberal in a lot of ways, so just go with it for a second.

Seattle is super rich and super liberal. There is ample ideological support for progressive taxes in Seattle, whereby the richer you get, the more steeply your tax burden increases. Even rich people in Seattle are ideologically supportive of these notions. Even guys like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.

So what's the problem? Washington's state constitution says they can't tax income. Even ostensibly conservative states like Alaska and Idaho can tax income (though the former chooses not to), and taxing income is the easiest way to establish progressive state taxes.

So there is no ordinance Seattle City Council can pass that makes income taxes legal. So they are struggling to figure out ways to establish a progressive tax structure. It's not that they need to, they just want to. But they can't, and that makes them mad. So what people like Sawant are doing is trying to stir up chaos until people get so riled up that they storm Olympia and demand the ability to progressively tax themselves via income taxes. That's why she's being so rabidly anti-business and so heavy on the anti-Amazon rhetoric. It's a ploy to get people angry and mobilized until legislators in Olympia buckle.

What she's doing in the process though is turning large companies off from expanding business in Seattle, and making non-Seattle options look all the more attractive all the time.

I act like I stand to lose from Seattle going crazy. Quite the opposite, ironically. I have a home in the fastest growing area of Boise, which is the fastest growing city in the country, and the more business Seattle shuns, the more business relatively nearby places like Boise attracts. This bodes well for me.

But I have to call it like I see it. Sawant and other radical progressives are sabotaging Seattle in favor of a broader agenda.
 
Neomalthusian said:
I'm able to think like a liberal in a lot of ways, so just go with it for a second.

Seattle is super rich and super liberal. There is ample ideological support for progressive taxes in Seattle, whereby the richer you get, the more steeply your tax burden increases. Even rich people in Seattle are ideologically supportive of these notions. Even guys like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.

So what's the problem? Washington's state constitution says they can't tax income. Even ostensibly conservative states like Alaska and Idaho can tax income (though the former chooses not to), and taxing income is the easiest way to establish progressive state taxes.

So there is no ordinance Seattle City Council can pass that makes income taxes legal. So they are struggling to figure out ways to establish a progressive tax structure. It's not that they need to, they just want to. But they can't, and that makes them mad. So what people like Sawant are doing is trying to stir up chaos until people get so riled up that they storm Olympia and demand the ability to progressively tax themselves via income taxes. That's why she's being so rabidly anti-business and so heavy on the anti-Amazon rhetoric. It's a ploy to get people angry and mobilized until legislators in Olympia buckle.

What she's doing in the process though is turning large companies off from expanding business in Seattle, and making non-Seattle options look all the more attractive all the time.

I act like I stand to lose from Seattle going crazy. Quite the opposite, ironically. I have a home in the fastest growing area of Boise, which is the fastest growing city in the country, and the more business Seattle shuns, the more business relatively nearby places like Boise attracts. This bodes well for me.

But I have to call it like I see it. Sawant and other radical progressives are sabotaging Seattle in favor of a broader agenda.
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Do you live in Seattle?

I do kinda, two of my kids live there, my wife works there, I have spent a lot of time there since 2004.

This is the story as I see it: Seattle has decided that the arc of history has preordained that they are to be a great city, like San francisco, only they are just getting started. They have the chance to avoid San francisco's mistakes and they have the ability to build Seattle as they dream it to be......because like I said success has already been guaranteed by the Gods or what ever subs for them now.....they are sure of this, so any not doing exactly what they want to do is compromising their values.....which they refuse to do.

Also since success is already established (it has been promised...they can count on it) worky work things like good government dont get their motor running.
 
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Hawkeye10 said:
Do you live in Seattle?

I do kinda, two of my kids live there, my wife works there, I have spent a lot of time there since 2004.

This is the story as I see it: Seattle has decided that the arc of history has preordained that they are to be a great city, like San francisco, only they are just getting started. They have the chance to avoid San francisco's mistakes and they have the ability to build Seattle as they dream it to me......because like I said success has already been guaranteed by the Gods or what ever subs for them now.....they are sure of this, so any not doing exactly what they want to do is compromising their values.....which they refuse to do.
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I've spent a lot of time in Seattle. My brother-in-law is a corporate law partner downtown, and we've lived in southeast Alaska for the last decade so we've depended on Seattle for most of our goods. We've now relocated to Boise, ID.

Seattle doesn't just have fantasies of being great, it already is great, by almost all standards, and much of this is thanks to several of the world's most successful corporations setting up shop there. This creates greatness across many categories. They're already there. They've just been hijacked by leftist radicals that only care about using their seat and the city itself to advance a vastly more progressive set of ideals statewide and nationwide, and does not really care at all about the actual basic operations and gradual improvement of the city.
 
Neomalthusian said:
I'm able to think like a liberal in a lot of ways, so just go with it for a second.

Seattle is super rich and super liberal. There is ample ideological support for progressive taxes in Seattle, whereby the richer you get, the more steeply your tax burden increases. Even rich people in Seattle are ideologically supportive of these notions. Even guys like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.

So what's the problem? Washington's state constitution says they can't tax income. Even ostensibly conservative states like Alaska and Idaho can tax income (though the former chooses not to), and taxing income is the easiest way to establish progressive state taxes.

So there is no ordinance Seattle City Council can pass that makes income taxes legal. So they are struggling to figure out ways to establish a progressive tax structure. It's not that they need to, they just want to. But they can't, and that makes them mad. So what people like Sawant are doing is trying to stir up chaos until people get so riled up that they storm Olympia and demand the ability to progressively tax themselves via income taxes. That's why she's being so rabidly anti-business and so heavy on the anti-Amazon rhetoric. It's a ploy to get people angry and mobilized until legislators in Olympia buckle.

What she's doing in the process though is turning large companies off from expanding business in Seattle, and making non-Seattle options look all the more attractive all the time.

I act like I stand to lose from Seattle going crazy. Quite the opposite, ironically. I have a home in the fastest growing area of Boise, which is the fastest growing city in the country, and the more business Seattle shuns, the more business relatively nearby places like Boise attracts. This bodes well for me.

But I have to call it like I see it. Sawant and other radical progressives are sabotaging Seattle in favor of a broader agenda.
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You are quite right. Seattle's stupidity is only hurting them. Their efforts to push out business only benefits cities and states that encourage business. (And it's not just business, but individuals, that are pushed aside). My state, for example, has two cities as finalists for the HQ2 project, and has probably benefited more than any other from bad decisions in California. We should probably encourage them to stick it to Amazon, Starbucks, and Boeing with a $1000 head tax, and a $25 minimum wage.

It's also great from the viewpoint that laboratories of democracy are a good thing. We should encourage cities and states to follow their own path (provided they don't try to impose it on others). Some people don't mind the conditions of a certain area, and are happy there. It also allows us to learn which policies are good and bad, so they can be adapted (or shunned) elsewhere.

Not to mention, it allows for some good discussion in online forums.
 
Neomalthusian said:
What I really despise about left wing notions of affordable housing is that housing simply is not affordable in big expensive cities, and there's no way to fake its affordability. All you can do is institute programs whereby some people who can't afford to live there are allowed to live there anyway at neighbors' expense.

There can be no such thing as housing that is affordable for low income families in places where we absolutely know housing is not affordable for low income families. Affordability in housing is a function of actual cost and actual income relative to that cost. Letting a bum live in a mansion doesn't mean the bum can actually afford anything related to living in a mansion. It's all feel-good bull**** that denies reality.
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Absolutely. It's a supply issue, not a cost one. It's been demonstrated over and over in places like Seattle, San Francisco, and New York. Build a 5000 1 bedroom 400 square feet apartments -- and you'll have 5000 expensive tiny apartments. The only way to make them 'affordable' is to have someone else pay part of the rent.

The true solution should be focused on having a LOT more housing by encouraging development. They also need an effective transportation system so that people can have more options on where to live (and yes, that includes the suburbs).
 
dcsports said:
Absolutely. It's a supply issue, not a cost one. It's been demonstrated over and over in places like Seattle, San Francisco, and New York. Build a 5000 1 bedroom 400 square feet apartments -- and you'll have 5000 expensive tiny apartments. The only way to make them 'affordable' is to have someone else pay part of the rent.
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Well if development is this vs. that, 5,000 tiny apartments is an affordable housing decision relative to luxury condos, let's say. It does allow people with slightly lower incomes (than could otherwise afford to live there) live there. But it sure doesn't solve any homelessness problem. The people sleeping in tents littered around Seattle's freeways are not families making $70,000 a year who are just waiting and waiting for an affordable apartment to come up for rent. They're people with serious mental and substance use problems who have no foreseeable near-term future earning a living and paying for their housing and utilities in a place like Seattle.

The true solution should be focused on having a LOT more housing by encouraging development.
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Seattle proper doesn't have a lot of room to develop out. It'd have to develop up. Which means big tall buildings full of small apartments. Guess who tends to oppose those projects? Every other property owner in the area. People see these projects as devaluing their property and welcoming in undesirables to their neighborhoods. Quoting an interesting article published by Huffington Post about 2/3rds down the page under the section on "Zoning,"

"all the urgency to build comes from people who need somewhere to live. But all the political power is held by people who already own homes. For homeowners, there is no such thing as a housing crisis. Why? Because when property values go up, so does their net worth. They have every reason to block new construction. And they do that by weaponizing environmental regulations and historical preservation rules. They force buildings to be shorter so they don’t cast shadows. They demand two parking spaces for every single unit. They complain that a new apartment building will destroy “neighborhood character” when the structure it’s replacing is… a parking garage. (True story.) All this extra hassle means construction takes longer and costs more. Which means that the only way most developers can make a profit is to build luxury condos. So that’s why cities are so unaffordable. The entire system is structured to produce expensive housing when we desperately need the opposite."
​
 
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