San Francisco Voters Approve Taxes On Highly Paid CEOs, Big Businesses (latimes.com) 181
San Francisco voters have overwhelmingly approved several tax measures targeting property owners and big businesses with CEOs who are paid far more than their average workers. The Los Angeles Times reports: Under a newly approved law, any company whose top executive earns 100 times more than its average worker will pay an extra 0.1% surcharge on its annual business-tax payment. If a CEO makes 200 times more than the average employee, the surcharge increases to 0.2%, and so on per multiple of 100. Voters also agreed to sweeping business-tax changes that will lead to a higher tax rate for many tech companies and a higher transfer tax on property sales valued between $10 million and $25 million.
The results "show that San Franciscans are concerned about growing economic inequality," city Supervisor Matt Haney, the author of the measure titled Overpaid Executive Tax, said Wednesday. "The very wealthy are gaining more and more. They've gotten much richer during the pandemic, while everyone else has remained stagnant." The CEO tax is expected to generate between $60 million to $140 million per year. Haney said he wants most of the money directed towards health services. He dismisses fears that the surcharge will drive companies out of the city, saying the tax is modest in comparison to the cost of moving a business. He said he hopes the tax will drive companies to reexamine their compensation structures and will ultimately be adopted on a national level.
The results "show that San Franciscans are concerned about growing economic inequality," city Supervisor Matt Haney, the author of the measure titled Overpaid Executive Tax, said Wednesday. "The very wealthy are gaining more and more. They've gotten much richer during the pandemic, while everyone else has remained stagnant." The CEO tax is expected to generate between $60 million to $140 million per year. Haney said he wants most of the money directed towards health services. He dismisses fears that the surcharge will drive companies out of the city, saying the tax is modest in comparison to the cost of moving a business. He said he hopes the tax will drive companies to reexamine their compensation structures and will ultimately be adopted on a national level.
Highly paid CEOs and big businesses... (Score:2, Insightful)
I hear Texas is nice this time of year.
Re:Highly paid CEOs and big businesses... (Score:5, Insightful)
Woohoo! Turn Texas Blue!
No chance of that (Score:4, Insightful)
Woohoo! Turn Texas Blue!
Not going to happen, as it turns out the hispanic population is turning red lots faster [nbcnews.com] than Texas is becoming blue...
The future of the Republican Party is multi-racial.
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Always has been.
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Woohoo! Turn Texas Blue!
Not going to happen, as it turns out the hispanic population is turning red lots faster [nbcnews.com] than Texas is becoming blue...
I don't know about that. The last time a Democrat lost in Texas by fewer than 800k votes was when H. Ross Perot (a Texas businessman) was running as a third-party candidate and split the vote a bit, and most of the losses since Carter were by over a million votes. So this is by far the closest to blue that I've seen Texas in a long time. The entire idea that Texas could be considered a battleground state in this election is just nuts.
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Re:Highly paid CEOs and big businesses... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah! Keep voting in the same policies that caused you to move out of a Blue State in the first place!
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Yeah! Keep voting in the same policies that caused you to move out of a Blue State in the first place!
Oh, the rich people who make the decision to move won't keep voting blue (and most of them probably don't vote that way now). But their workers who follow the jobs will.
Re:Highly paid CEOs and big businesses... (Score:5, Insightful)
Highly paid CEOs and big businesses ...move out of San Francisco. Film at eleven.
Indeed.
He dismisses fears that the surcharge will drive companies out of the city, saying the tax is modest in comparison to the cost of moving a business.
But you only pay the price of the move once. The new taxes are ongoing and the business owners can expect more to be added as time goes on.
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Re:Highly paid CEOs and big businesses... (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it strange the politicians in California pretend it is their policies that make the state so economically strong, rather than the natural beauty of the state attracting people, and the politicians growing like moss and leeches around the success, parasites and disease trying to find the right level not to kill off their hosts.
Which pretty much describes all human history since the first group of thugs with swords invented taxes on farmers gathering to trade.
Re: Highly paid CEOs and big businesses... (Score:2)
Something, something, once you pay them the Danegeld, something
Re:Highly paid CEOs and big businesses... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's something I noticed about people who come up with ideas like this tax. They don't seem to understand the difference between an amount and a rate (first derivative of an amount), and erroneously conflate the two leading to all sorts of mistaken ideas. e.g. They keep wanting to tax wealth, when wealth is just the integral of income (minus expenses), which is already taxed. Taxing wealth creates an unfair situation where someone who saves their money has to pay more taxes than someone who blows their money on toys and parties, even if both their incomes are identical. If you don't think wealthy people are paying enough taxes, the only fair way to increase their taxes without unfairly taxing people who save more, is to increase the tax rate on higher incomes.
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Actually, I suspect the CEO will give raises to only a few *loyal* underlings, enough to raise the average and beat the taxes... and make it clear it is a reward for loyalty. They should have used a ratio to the median, not the average... I've long thought that politicians should get paid exactly the same as the median income in their districts. Lots would change with a law like that.
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How does it come that americans are so obsessed with medians?
Can one explain that?
1 2 3 4 5 - median 3
2 2 2 3 3 4 5 999 - median 3
Nearly everything involving a median is completely meaningless if you do not know max, min, avrg, and sample size.
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1 2 3 4 5 - median 3
Or: "at least half are 3 or lower".
2 2 2 3 3 4 5 999 - median 3
Or: "at least half are 3 or lower".
And that's exactly the point: The median cannot be manipulated by just
changing the top half. The mean in your examples is 3 and 127.5, and is
a useless number for "how does this affect the lower parts of the sample?"
Re:Highly paid CEOs and big businesses... (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't even have to do that. You outsource security, cleaning, cafeteria... Basically anyone making anywhere close to minimum wage. Then you just make an average of 50 bucks an hour (just above poverty in SF). This allow the CEO to make 5000 an hour or 10M a year.
So you think politicians make money from their salary? Really a Senator makes 174K dollars, or a bit over 1M for 6 years. This for a job that you may get every 6 years, costing many 10s of millions to have a competitive election, closer to 100M in a larger state. For a job that will pay a small percentage of that.
Re:Highly paid CEOs and big businesses... (Score:5, Insightful)
I hear Texas is nice this time of year.
Don't be silly, nothing so drastic is needed. Just get paid in stock options with an insanely short vesting time and get no salary instead. Okay oversimplified, but I give this a whole 2 hours before some lawyer / tax expert works around it.
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Most CXXs, VPs and senior management get their money mostly in stock and options anyway. The nominal salaries are largely symbolic.
Re:Highly paid CEOs and big businesses... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure this increase is big enough for that. It's still fraction of a single percent. And when you're that high on top of the society, you are more than willing to pay a lot extra for comfort.
The other side is that I'm not sure this is big enough to make it worth it to raise salaries either. More likely, this is a first step, and this tax will go up.
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This assumes that tax in question is a relevant number for city budget, rather than an ideological testing ground for entirely new taxation mechanisms aimed at subsidizing specific behavioural patterns.
The fact that it went to a vote suggests latter rather than former.
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An easier solution is to split the company into two, with a "managing company" that consist only of management with highly paid salary, and the other company containing the rest.
Easier Solutions (Score:2)
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By that logic it's a race to the bottom. Anyone who can afford to move state will do so just to avoid some tax.
Fortunately tax isn't the only factor when deciding where to incorporate.
It's a stupid move. There are lots of reasons to move a business out of the city, and this personally targets those who make such decisions.
Re:Highly paid CEOs and big businesses... (Score:4, Insightful)
This might be an entirely acceptable outcome; prices in general in that area are completely out of control and far past what is affordable for many of the residents. Perhaps if they shoehorn out several of these white hot economic wires prices will fall back in line with what people can afford.
There's a reason a lot of valuable tech lives there; many valuable employees live there and won't move. If the company moves, those high value employees can just walk next door to the next up-and-coming willing to put up with what SF wants to leverage SF experience.
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So basically when you get rich you become immune to tax, it's only the suckers who aren't rich who have to pay it, and there's nothing anyone can do.
How's that been working out for you over the past few decades?
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Fortunately tax isn't the only factor when deciding where to incorporate.
All big tech companies incorporate in one of the states on the following list. If you want to get big, you would have to be a complete idiot to incorporate in a state not on this list:
1. Delaware
Re: Highly paid CEOs and big businesses... (Score:3)
Where you incorporate has absolutely no effect on what state taxes you pay.
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That article is a gross oversimplification. A company headquartered in California is free to incorporate in Delaware, but if they fail to pay corporate taxes to California, they will have a bad time of it.
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CEOs are paid in stock (Score:5, Interesting)
This won't make any difference as most tech CEOs are paid in stock and have $1 salaries
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While true, all those can be calculated in terms of monetary value. It strikes me that this legislation is in many ways pretty irrelevant.
It seems to be more of a "foot in the door" kind, where regulations, rules and amount will be tweaked over time.
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You're splitting hairs. Stock options are just as valid of a form of payment. Even if they were done earlier. And it most certainly can be taxed and in fact IS taxed today already. It's "capital gains tax" or variants of it depending on the nation.
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In practice, if you're paid in redbull and stock options at a startup, and later sell those, it's usually just income tax on that, and perhaps AMT deposit prior. If you're a speculator, just flipping stocks on market (long term), you usually pay
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>Obviously just peanuts in grand scheme of things, ie the bill is more of a populist one rather than serious stab at wealth redistribution.
I'm in complete agreement here. Like I say in several parts of this thread, this seems to be more of a "foot in the door" kind of a legislation. The actual adjustment of taxation type and numbers is likely to follow if this sticks for a few years and there's actual data on how it works in the first place.
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Math (Score:2, Insightful)
Taxing the rich doesn't generate enough revenue to really make a difference. What you want is a well-taxed middle class and a society where most of the population is middle class.
The question we all need the answer to is how to create this healthy middle class. The answer is difficult and involves properly funded public education, health insurance, social programs, fair global economic policy, etc.
"Tax the rich" is just politically expedient, like "socialism is bad" and all the other BS catch phases our u
Re:Math (Score:4, Insightful)
A healthy middle class is a politically influential middle class.
Can't have the power that the megacorps accumulated suddenly going back to the population, can we?
Re:Math (Score:4, Insightful)
How could that be, when the top 1% own 38.5% of the country's wealth [jacobinmag.com]?
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Owning wealth and generating wealth do not necessarily correlate AND rich have access to methods of bypassing laws through loopholes that middle class doesn't. Finally, their type of work tends to be of the kind that can be done out of country if needed.
It's why in Western nations, it's the middle class that is by far the most taxed. They're in the sweet spot where they're both rich enough to be able to generate significant tax revenues, and at the same time poor enough not to have access to methods of avoi
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Which is why it would be far better to spend the effort on removing loopholes rather than raising taxes on the rich. Just imagine how much more income the government would have if rich people had to pay the same percentage of their money coming in as middle class people did!
The reason that won't happen though is that all politicians are extremely rich (you have to be to get elected), and know that removing loopholes would hurt them and their friends, whereas raising taxes on the rich, doesn't affect anyone
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For the record, I'm with you in the principle. But there's a real problem in the world today where freedom of movement of capital is one of the cornerstone policies of the foundation that enabled rapid growth post Cold War.
And pretty much the only way to do what you're talking about is to return capital controls. The problem here is that this would effectively decapitate many economies as capital will flee to places where capital controls are not on place, causing a deep long-term recession across the board
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Why would you want the middle class paying the most taxes?
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Because in most countries that are the most people.
Seriously? Germany has about 80million people, roughly 40million are middle class, roughly 10million don't pay taxes or are on welfare, 1million is "rich" or even super rich. The most money you would get from the middle class ... even with increasing tax brackets the higher it goes. Obviously it is unfair that people with an absurd income still pay only a just a little bit.
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This is the 1st I heard of the SF law but I had a similar idea. Companies of a certain size should have a corporate tax rate set based on the compensation discrepancy between the CEO and the average employee. I never sat down and really tried to hash out a formula but if you want to pay less taxes, either compensate the CEO less or pay the employees more. If you think giving the CEO $20mil/yr is worth the
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When the internet boom happened, and the government had unexpected revenue, giving it a surplus, Congress didn't take that lying down. Within 2 years they increased spending and rammed back up into borrowing.
They literally borrow proportional to revenue and GDP, that is their baseline, not a balanced budget.
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A one off payment of 2625 is not a life changing amount.
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1. That's not income, and the govrnent can't take it.
2. If the government took it, they'd find themselves with a bunch of stock because that's what it is. They'd sell it, causing the stock price to collapse, and they'd get just a fraction of what the blabbering politicians said they'd get.
3. As this would give the government more money, they'd spend it, not reducing deficit, much less debt, one iota, and in fact borrow more, since the amount they borrow is proportional to revenue.
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I forgot the pissed off masses because of retirement accounts depressed by collapse of one of the great stock success stories.
Well this works. (Score:4, Insightful)
Has this ever worked? Has anyone realized there will just be more added or increased on top of this? After you make it so expensive to have a business in a location, don't you think people will move? Isn't this "global pandemic" with so much remote working show a business can literally be anywhere?
Why are people so upset at how much someone else makes? Only one answer: They're mad because it's not them. Oh I know, if you made that much money you would be Santa Clause and give it all away.... after you have your nice house, etc. Or you would take a really small salary, and pay the other workers more. You would take all the risks as an owner and all the hard work as a CEO (yes, it takes a ton of your lifetime away) and feel better about yourself. I'm sure that's what all the people who voted for this would do.
Translation: Cool, make someone else pay for it? Sure thing.
I'm supposing the higher tax rate and transfer taxes on property were thought to be clever. Raise taxes and try and lock them in. This only works if new locations are expensive also.
Best part of this is the city supervisor who wrote this. Did anyone forget salaries for government positions are public information? I'm sure they are all about equal pay, nope
"San Francisco’s supervisors will be getting a 12% raise this year, more than three times the size of those being given to other elected officials and city employees."
Unfortunately the rest of the article from the San Francisco Chronicle is paywalled, but can be found.
By the way I love the articles top picture is a sidewalk with tents. After a while, that's all you'll have.
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You've forgotten something important. Something revealed every time I pay my phone bill. Government imposed taxes trickle down to the customer. The only people worrying about not being able to do business in a place is those that can't pass the cost along.
Re: Well this works. (Score:3)
If that were true, they'd not live in SF (Score:4, Insightful)
Has this ever worked? ... After you make it so expensive to have a business in a location, don't you think people will move? Isn't this "global pandemic" with so much remote working show a business can literally be anywhere?
Why are people so upset at how much someone else makes? Only one answer: They're mad because it's not them.
I don't live or work in SF, so I don't have a dog in this fight, but if what you said was true, what's keeping them in San Francisco in the first place? Aren't they one of the most expensive cities in the world? I agree with others that this is largely symbolic measure as the tax increase is so tiny. However, you're just throwing FUD at the situation without knowing what you're talking about. There are already cheaper places to set up an office. If cost was the only issue, every tech company would setup in the most remote location, like Wyoming...or the most impoverished, like the worst neighborhoods in Detroit.
Any company that is located in California thinks it's a competitive advantage...from the local talent, to the supporting services in the area, to the access to investors.
Sure, maybe a few companies here and there are sentimental about their roots and want to stay in a community they know and love. However, I would argue that most are total sociopaths. The only reason a tech company hasn't moved every possible position they could to India, the Philippines, China, or wherever it is cheap is because they cannot. Believe me, they all tried 15 years ago. It was on slashdot every week, some scare story about Americans relocating to India to keep their jobs.
They hire workers in America because they think that's where the best talent is. They're setting up shop in SF because they think the Bay Area has more talented workers. If they could get talented workers anywhere, they'd no doubt set up someplace cheaper.
I've worked for a few companies that tried to relocate development work entirely to India. What happened? The shortage of talent in India is just as severe as it is in the rest of the world....anyone you want to hire, everyone else wants to hire...and they don't want to work for cheap. Once they realized that offshoring was not giving a good return on investment, they staffed up in their offices in the expensive neighborhoods in the US where the talent was. Programmers are not a commodity. There is nothing more expensive than a cheap programmer. (I am focusing on software engineering because it's what I know and let's face it, that's who they're targeting in SF)
I call shenanigans on your FUD. Conservatives love to forecast doom and gloom that everyone will pack their bags and leave if you tax them. I got news for you, anyone could could setup shop successfully overseas already has.
Instead, what we have are CEOs earning more and more money while worker wages remain stagnant...why?...a 1-2 punch between terrible policy, mostly the on the part of Republicans to give tax cuts they cannot afford and hope things just work themselves out....and automation. The top 1% is not paying their share, compared to every decade since WW2, and perpetually accumulating wealth at the expense of everyone else. Anyone who thinks this tiny tax makes a difference underestimates the power they wield over the 1%.
Also, for the record, I have no problems with people shrinking government and cutting taxes. I am a fiscal conservative. Unfortunately, in the last 25 years, the Republicans have failed to be fiscally conservative or even remotely responsible with money and budgets. They're a full time opposition party who is great at complaining and winning elections, but terrible at governing when they get elected. I wish Republicans were all about fiscal responsibility like they say they are.
The real wishful thinking is on the part of idiots who cheer for tax cuts without spending cuts. It's great if you want to cut taxes, just balance the b
Re:Well this works. (Score:5, Informative)
" Why are people so upset at how much someone else makes? "
Because this is how we got to the income gap we see today.
In what universe does anyone think the following is acceptable:
Since 1978 CEO compensation has risen ~1000%
Since 1978 the average workers compensation has risen ~12%
In other terms, the average CEO makes nearly ~280x of the average worker.
Let's look at the recently retired CEO of the company I work for shall we ?
( Who made ~375x of an above average employee's salary the last three years he was CEO )
"He is leaving with a golden parachute retirement package. His pension is valued at $64 million with an additional $27.6 million in deferred earnings, according to the New York Times. This massive sum of money, according to MarketWatch, would provide the 60-year-old with “a guaranteed income of $274,000 a month for the rest of his days.” This is on top of his total last three years of an average $30 million compensation."
He leaves the company a US record shattering $153 BILLION dollars in debt. ALL of which was acquired during his tenure as CEO.
The man was fucking REWARDED for being one of the worst CEO's in history FFS.
If you can afford to pay the aforementioned such excessive sums of money for doing the worlds worst job as CEO, you can definitely afford to pay some extra taxes.
Let's remember... (Score:4, Interesting)
... that Jeff Bezos makes only 81K / year, and Mark Zuckerberg makes $1 / year. Elon Musk makes $0 / year.
3 of the richest people in the world have a salary at or near zero. Their wealth is all tied up in stock they already own.
You will see a similar pattern when you look at a lot of tech CEOs in the bay area. Very little of how these people make money is tied to compensation.
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This law really seems like a foot in the door. It can be later adjusted to include things like income from stocks, and the amount can be adjusted as well.
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You don't understand. Tech founder/CEOs aren't "paid in stock", it is stock they already own that is simply increasing in value.
A city cant tax income from stocks that one already owns as if it is salary from the company, because it doesn't even make any sense.
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Capital Gains Tax when they sell said stocks?
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That's actually not even hard. Make it so you must post an evaluation based on market rate in your tax forms (for example, stock value for trading company) of how much your ownership increased or decreased. With publicly traded companies, law already mandates in many nations that this sort of information, alongside CEO's investment in the company be publicly disclosed.
Then you simply apply tax to a portion of increase of value due to ownership on top of your salary, with deduction and extensions for value g
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A city cant tax income from stocks that one already owns as if it is salary from the company, because it doesn't even make any sense.
They surely can, capital gains tax when the stock was sold, income tax when the stock paid dividends, inheritance tax when the CEO died.
The loophole is when the CEO simply move somewhere without capital gains tax before selling the stocks.
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A city cant tax income from stocks that one already owns
Property tax.
Re: Let's remember... (Score:2)
I have no idea what that comment is referring to, but it is unheard of to tax an unrelaized capital gain on stocks. I don't think they would even have the jurisdiction, not to mention what the fallout of that could be on pension plans.
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Elon Musk is certainly paid in stock every time Tesla hits a new milestone. It's one of the most generous compensation plans in existence, and has been challenged in court by certain shareholders for that reason. Not that he doesn't deserve it, since the milestones were outrageously ambitious and it's quite amazing that they achieved them so quickly.
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AFAIK Elon Musk makes $42K a year, all of which he donates, resulting in $0 adjusted income. He lives off of borrowing against his stock, so he does not have to pay any income tax on that at all - that came out during his being sued for calling a guy a "pedo", where Elon's lawyer provided proof that Elon makes no money. Yes he pays interest on borrowed money (2% perhaps, paid with new loans), but that is nothing compared to income tax he could have paid if he sold the stock in question. His stock keeps on a
Trickle down (Score:2)
Re:Trickle down is a myth (Score:4, Insightful)
Trickle down is a myth. The only thing that will trickle down from the rich are excreta.
California hates successful businesses. (Score:2)
And it shows this dislike by increasing their taxes until they leave the state. This policy is beginning to bear fruit as businesses are fleeing the state for lower-tax places. This punitive taxation will eventually result in loss of revenue as all the taxpayers and taxpaying businesses leave the state. Just as the mayor of SF has been discovering: When you shut all the businesses down, the tax revenue stops.
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Worse it's comming at a time where companies have been forced to figure out lots of people in one place is not as useful as they thought.
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The sheer size of the California economy would prove you wrong.
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Amount of taxation involved is pretty much opposite of "punitive".
San Fransisco businesses offshore their CEOs (Score:2)
And this is why CEOâ(TM)s have accountants (Score:2)
To legally avoid as many taxes as possible.
That and the people who proposed this probably have less idea than my dog does about how much they might get in tax revenues from this.
Move states, move income (Score:3)
The two main ways that high income people avoid taxes are:
1. Move to a lower state, in name only. If you have more than 100 million, it is not that hard to have a 2nd home in Texas or Florida. Work a 3 day work week and fly home for every 4 day "weekend" and you are set. Works even easier once you become the CEO and have the President do most of the work, except for the big picture stuff.
2. This is not income, it is return of principal (which if the 'principal' has a profit, you never sell and never pay the capital gains tax on it). This is not income, it is interest payments on a loan I gave to my company (20% vs 40% tax rate). This was income, but it is far exceeded by my tax loss for five of the six high risk investments I made last year (The last investment? It is doing well but paid me in stock which I have not sold yet.) This is not income, this is stock I have not sold yet. This is not MY income, I gave that equity to a Family Trust, that pays me only 100k a year, not the 100 million the equity made.
Most people with wealth over 100 million never pay most of their capital gains taxes, they die before they officially sell, and their inheritors pay only the inheritance tax, not the capital gains.
Sales tax taxes the poor (they spend all their money). Income tax taxes the middle class (they save, but not enough to pay the fees to do these tricks). Property/Wealth Taxes tax the rich (which is why we have such few property/wealth taxes).
Who gets that money? (Score:2)
The workers? Or the government? Good thing the rich can afford it. 10 cents to make $100.00... sounds like a steal.
Gig economy (Score:2)
The 'average worker' will be someone rather high up in the company executive hierarchy. Everyone below a calculated cutoff point will be reclassified as independent contractors.
Problem solved.
Epic fail (Score:2)
Whoever came up with this had an epic fail. They've successfully shafted even more rank and file workers while doing absolutely nothing to overpaid CEO's.
First of all, it's just going to encourage CEO's to outsource even more of their rank and file workers to increase their companies average wage. This kind of outsourcing is already rampant for everything from janitorial to cafeteria workers. The result of this is now even more rank and file employees are going to be outsourced and lose their benefits like
Too many ways to avoid it (Score:2)
Yes, they included direct monetary and indirect wages, like stocks. However there is always an out: the company can move their HQ.
And it is not like moving out of state. Just next to SF proper there are other cities, like San Mateo, San Bruno, Daly City, and many others. And don't forget South Valley (Palo Alto, Mountain View), or many other parts of the peninsula.
Or they can just "restructure", so that the HQ has only highly paid employees, while lower paying jobs are "outsourced" to wholly owned subsidiar
Stop being so gullible! (Score:5, Interesting)
Politicians have built decades-long careers on promises they would "soak the rich", yet somehow the rich have been getting richer at higher rates during those same decades... there's a reason for that, it's planned, and this new law is just another distraction.
The politicians in the Bay Area are fueled by campaign cash for the super-rich; they're NEVER going to actually implement anything that hurts their backers. Both the politicians and the gazillionaires are counting on the fact that the public schools do a poor job educating kids, and therefore the public will not actually know the real questions that should be asked and certainly will not know which policies will look good but be totally ineffective.
If you ask the average person about the super-rich, they'll imagine these people have huge paychecks and fat wallets and that they can be hurt by increasing their income taxes; this makes sense because average people live paycheck-to-paycheck so they feel paychecks and pay a lot of attention to the cash in their wallets.
The public completely misunderstands the hyper-wealthy
The hyper-wealthy do NOT carry tons of cash in their wallets and they frequently draw little or no salary (which is why famous Democrat Warren Buffet is always supporting higher INCOME taxes and commenting that he pays less than his secretary, which IF it truly mattered to him HE could resolve with a pen and his checkbook). The real advantage of the hyper-rich is that they do not NEED to worry about the cash in their wallet or bank, NOT the actual amount there; You and Buffet could both have 5 twenty dollar bills in your wallets - the big difference is YOUR 20s are valuable to you because once you spend them, they're gone, whereas to Warren a spent 20 can be refilled on a whim by one of his companies. A guy like Buffet, or Gates, or Zuckerberg can have many of his living expenses covered by his business as a business expense (travel costs, wardrobe costs, meals, phones, etc) depending on how these things are structured and whether the accountants can line them up. If you are the face of your company, your accountant can categorize many of your expenses for things like clothes as business expenses (part of the corporate image) personal travel can be aligned with business meetings and then becomes a business expense... If your business is paying most of your needs, then you can take a small salary to cover just the stuff too obviously not-business-related and pay income taxes on THAT. Jeff Bezos will be just as comfortable flying on a plane owned by Amazon as he would be on one he personally owned. Elon Musk does not need to personally own the Tesla he drives, it can belong to Tesla. When Warren Buffet pretends to be an "aw shucks" average guy and eats at Dairy Queen, he's probably sampling the quality of the product at the restraurant he owns, or visibly demonstrating confidence in the product thereof, (therefore a business cost) and when he's not in blue jeans he's probably "the face of Berkshire Hathaway" and in company-owned clothes. Your actual wealth in this situation is in stocks, and stock options, and the biggest benefit you get is actually not monetary (you can get any amount you need any time you need it, but taking it will get you taxed a little bit) but rather the fact that your brain is no longer constantly partly concerned with money worries (never needing to worry how you'll pay the bills if you get sick, or need to replace a car, or want to take a vacation, etc).
No proposal to "soak the rich" is honest if it is aimed at INCOME, which most of the very wealthy do not take much of. The effort is even less honest when aimed at "business income", since THOSE numbers are ALWAYS passed-on to the consumers of the products/services of those businesses. The ONLY way to honestly "soak the rich" is to tax their PROPERTY and do so on GLOBAL ASSETS (so they cannot shift asset ownership on-paper to offshore subsidiary business entities) which is why you NEVER see the Democrats propose this - people like Nancy Pelosi did not get where they are by being stupid enough to actually tax the rich people who fund their campaigns.
solved: create single person corporation (Score:2)
Chasing the creators of the tax base (Score:2)
Aaaaannnnd... (Score:2)
STAY OUT!
Why would CA deserve more of anyone's money? (Score:3, Insightful)
“I have never understood why it is 'greed' to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
Thomas Sowell
Nice! (Score:2)
CEOs will get 0,1% to 1% more money from the company to compensate.
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Got a good chuckle out of that. So in san francisco proper you can qualify for food stamps on a six figure income. You aren't from around here are you?
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And then you'll have "No True Scotsman" arguments thrown around while making the legislation, making it utterly byzantine.
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How do you want to implement VAT and sales tax simultaneously?
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We have VAT in Europe. In theory it is nice because the seller does not need to know whether they should apply the sales tax or not. In practice is prone to abuse and fraud like the VAT carousel.
Re:The Janitors revolt.... (Score:5, Insightful)
CEOs take risks to grow their companies. ...
No, they don't. Or what risk exactly is Zuckerberg or Cook taking? None
And Zuckerberg is even a self made man, while most CeOs are simply hired by the company and have absolutely no involvement with the company, except for a golden parachute.
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They don't even have to go far out of the city. Where is the next tech town going to be? San Jose?
Oakland/Alameda.
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They don't take personal risks. Worst case they drive the company into the ground and their stocks become worthless, but by then they usually get rich enough to retire early and spend their time doing consulting.
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This is, in short, how the first Polish Republic has collapsed.
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turn the US into Venezuela
No. Democratic Kampuchea.
think mc jobs that pay near min with ceo at billon (Score:2)
think mc jobs that pay near min with ceo at billions. But we can make them an 1099 ubers even when your an stocker, or amazon forklift driver