It is a very common trope that you hear when politicians are trying to raise taxes that "rich people will leave if you do that" and certainly some will do that. I think in the USA this is particularly problematic because there's a huge different between moving from a country to another and moving from one state to another.
But what should be done about it? It is very likely that simply the state getting more money is not really going to solve a crisis that is much more systemic. Not that I'm against taxes against businesses, specially these extremely high gross businesses. But SF needs to really examine what is going wrong and why they're incapable of solving their problems because somehow I have the suspicious that more money isn't going to solve everything. I mean, isn't SF one of the richest states in the world anyway?
It specifically affects payments companies more because of how the revenue subject to taxation is calculated.
Apparently city elected officials have acknowledged it’s broken but also know it is not viable to cut any tech company’s taxes in this political environment. So they’re all leaving instead.
Where's the money going? Who knows, probably a mix of graft and incompetence.
I'm a bit skeptical it is graft but imagine it is just the long tax inside a big bureaucracy that siphons a penny here and a penny there, all in service of codes and permits, and there you go, that's hundreds of thousands of dollars gone before it reaches the streets.
Imagine if those tax dollars were just handed back to people as cash. Starting to sound like basic income.
What's this problematic difference, exactly? Every American citizen is subject to taxes whether he moves to Iowa or Istanbul.
Strong network effects.
