Even SF discovers that business-phobic policies hurt everyone
Image by Omar Burgos
The urgent need to reform San Francisco’s perverse business tax formula is getting support from across the City's political spectrum. SF Standard reports.
It’s a rare cause that can align San Francisco’s biggest private sector employers with its nonprofits and labor unions, or bring together political rivals like Mayor London Breed and Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who is challenging her reelection bid.
The urgent need to reform San Francisco’s perverse business tax formula is just such a cause—and, after two years of effort, a proposal to fix it could be going to voters for approval in November.
Modifying the gross receipts tax to focus on a company’s sales instead of its on-site headcount, the proposal would slash taxes for many small businesses while making it more attractive for large ones to keep their workers in town.
City officials acknowledged to The Standard that the plan, which underwent an extensive review by former City Controller Ben Rosenfield and the Treasurer and Tax Collector’s Office, will likely bring in less revenue for the city in the first few years but make San Francisco’s budget less dependent on a handful of companies over the long term. (Hardened policy wonks can delve into the specific language of the plan here.)
“We’re trying to make the city more resilient or less vulnerable to one or two big actors [leaving town],” said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who wrote a letter of inquiry about the city's business taxes last summer.
A coalition of business people, nonprofits and union representatives is expected to submit the measure this week to the Department of Elections, giving the plan a 50% threshold for passage, lower than if the proposal was put on the ballot by elected officials. This group will help fund the signature-gathering effort to get the measure to qualify for the ballot.
Read the whole thing here.
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