Can tax-code tweaks keep businesses from fleeing SF?
https://sfstandard.com/opinion/2025/06/16/san-francisco-business-tax-prop-m-cisneros-labor/
The San Francisco Standard
Published Jun. 16, 2025 • 6:00am
Labor unions have angrily accused big tech companies of not paying their share to plug the city’s ailing finances — and Mayor Daniel Lurie of doing nothing to force their hand.
In reality, the companies in question have paid more than they think they should have, and while the mayor hasn’t gotten involved, it’s not really his place to do so. Now another top city official, Treasurer José Cisneros, has given the unions a fresh magazine of ammo by stealthily putting forward a plan to lower the tax rate for another crop of big companies, including telecommunications giant AT&T. Already steamed by layoffs of city workers, the unions are sure to take it poorly.
It’s a dispute that’s both surface-level boring — how business taxes are assessed is as dry as it gets — and important, cutting to the heart of San Francisco’s effort to make itself more hospitable to commerce. Understood in that light, it’s hard not to side with Cisneros.
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