Too weak to work: SF's biz tax proposal
By Adam Lashinsky
San Francisco Standard
Published May 15, 2024 • 6:00am
The fractious political class of San Francisco has reached a surprising consensus, for once. The topic is business. The agreement: It’s super bleak out there.
The city’s budget has a billion-dollar hole in it; downtown office occupancy is about half of 2019 levels, the worst among major U.S. cities; and large employers—including Google, the great golden goose of the 21st century—are fleeing the city center.
The city’s solution is a much-ballyhooed proposal to reform its tax code, released last week. The grand bargain, which would go before voters this November, has something for everyone around the table. The richest companies, some of which would see lower taxes, would have more predictability about what they owe. Small businesses would overwhelmingly pay no taxes. And the city would reduce the risk of relying on a few big corporations to foot its bills.
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