Not often you hear of a story where Amazon and Starbucks have a conservative stance on something. Well when the far left Seattle City Council passed a "head tax" it has these two companies freaking out.
What will these taxes pay for? Affordable houses and "homeless services." Normally these liberal companies would be on board with this, but these taxes could be absolutely crippling to these companies.
Per Daily Wire:
“The city does not have a revenue problem — it has a spending efficiency problem,” Herdener said. “We are highly uncertain whether the city council’s anti-business positions or its spending inefficiency will change for the better.”
Amazon actually went before the city council to complain that Seattle was trying to push its responsibility for its own homelessness problem onto corporations, and got blasted by Councilmember Lorena Gonzalez for their lack of compassion.
"[Amazon's] tone in this message that is clearly hostile toward the city council is not what I expect from a business who continues to tell us that they want to be a partner on these issues," the councilwoman snapped, according to Fox News.
Neither corporation said outright that they wanted Seattle to take on the homeless problem on its own, but both claimed they were trying to explain to Seattle's local government officials that there was no way a "head tax," which charges Seattle-based corporations a $275 surcharge per employee per year, would ever lower the cost of Seattle housing to the point where it would be "affordable" for those living on the street — nor does providing such housing solve Seattle's transient problem.
After all, it didn't work the first time. Seattle repealed a similar "head tax" in 2009 after business declined.
The city, Starbucks' CEO John Kelly said in a statement issued to media, can't manage to care for the homeless it has. "If they cannot provide a warm meal and safe bed to a 5-year-old child, no one believes they will be able to make housing affordable or address opiate addiction," Kelly warned.
Seattle officials have been working on the "head tax" for nearly a year. Monday night, the council passed a resolution implementing the tax, though at a lower rate (the $275-per-person rate) than they wanted ($500-per-person). The mayor is not expected to veto the legislation.
The "head tax" is supposed to raise $48 million per year, but that depends largely on whether large corporations remain in a city where the cost of doing business is literally $275 per employee.
Very interesting stance from the extremely liberal companies that are Starbucks and Amazon. What are Jeff Bezos' thoughts on the issue? Will they come out and make their very conservative stances public? Time will tell.
Amazon Prime services just went up from $99 to $119/year.
This time next year, they'll go up to $275. #HeadTax
— Aaron Levine (@AaronQ13Fox) May 14, 2018
Amazon will pay about $12-$13 million a year under the tax on big businesses approved today by the Seattle City Council.
For perspective, Jeff Bezos has added an average of $10.6 million to his net worth every hour so far this yearhttps://t.co/IbgAqYjUUQ
— Mike Rosenberg (@ByRosenberg) May 14, 2018
I’m told that Mayor Durkan has apparently locked down the elevators at city hall so protesters who oppose her plan for a $250 (as opposed to $500) head tax can’t reach the seventh floor, where her office is.
— Erica C. Barnett (@ericacbarnett) May 11, 2018
Average Amazon salary is 25k.
1/3 of Amazon employees are on food stamps. Amazon's own employees need the #headtax to help fund affordable housing they currently don't have access to.Amazon would only be paying $20 million a year. That's less than 1 days worth of Amazon profit.
— Dae Shik Kim Hawkins Jr. (@daedaejr) May 9, 2018
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