My hoot of the day is a Bloomberg Tweet praising San Francisco while asking big technology firms to pay their fair share. 
Hoot of the Day
San Francisco lifer @garrytan weighs in on the city’s controversies with @emilychangtv and how tech should pay its “fair share.”
Fair Share
And who is it that gets to decide the definition of “Fair Share”?
If anything, I suspect big tech is paying more than its fair share.
How so? Let’s total it up starting with salaries and taxes on salaries.
Google Salary Estimates
Google pays its employees well. The median salary is $140,000 a year.
Every Google employee pays taxes at California’s exorbitant rate.
Talent.Com notes “If you make $140,000 a year living in the region of California, USA, you will be taxed $47,111. That means that your net pay will be $92,889 per year, or $7,741 per month. Your average tax rate is 33.7% and your marginal tax rate is 40.6%.”
Government takes over a third right off the top for someone making $140,000. The state itself takes 8% plus 9.3% of everything over $66,296 up to $338,640 when even higher rates kick in.
Those employees buy homes at absurd prices compared to elsewhere and government takes its pound of flesh from property taxes.
The employees eat at local businesses and buy merchandise from local merchants. The minimum state sales tax rate is 7.5 percent.
Factor in capital gains taxes. Factor in health benefits paid by Google. Factor in Federal payroll taxes.
Let’s discuss corporate taxes.
The California corporate tax rate is 8.84%. This tax rate applies to C corporations and LLCs that report a net profit. Otherwise, they pay a flat alternative minimum tax (AMT) of 6.65%.
Only a handful of states have a higher top corporate tax rate.
If Google did not exist or was not located in California, none of that would happen.
Google Contributes More Than Its Fair Share
Google contributes mightily towards California and would do so even if it paid no corporate taxes at all.
Nonetheless, we have ingrates pissing and moaning about how these companies do not pay their fair share.
Add it all up, and Google contributes too much.
To pay its fair share, Google needs to relocate to a lower tax state.
Hi, this is Garry Tan. I was interviewed in this segment. This was a long all day interview and edited down to 30 minutes.
I realize in the cutting room floor they cut my actual point: I am happy to pay taxes but only if we have effective government. And we don’t have that. When you hear me in the video talk about finding common sense solutions, they cut all the things that matter:
In SF we have a fentanyl crisis. We spend $600M to subsidize people to do drugs until they die in the streets. We also don’t teach children Algebra in middle schools. Our Asian American elders are being stabbed and robbed in the streets. SF has a $14B budget which is one of the largest budgets per capita in the world but also one of the most ineffective in the world.
I understand the idea we should cut taxes, but my argument for abundance is we need to hold elected officials accountable to run the government to provide these services only the government can: the social contract around public safety for instance is completely broken in SF and we will work hard to fix it.
So when you complain about me or my politics, I totally understand that taxes are too high in SF and California. But my argument in this interview was not meant to be that, but instead a demand to our elected leaders to step up.
Happy to post Garry Tan’s message that he was taken out of context.
But my comments on technology companies paying their far share stand.
Can’t you SUE those buggers out of everything++ for misrepresenting you?
“I understand the idea we should cut taxes, but my argument for abundance is we need to hold elected officials accountable to run the government to provide these services only the government can: the social contract around public safety for instance is completely broken in SF and we will work hard to fix it.”
—–
So why aren’t they being held accountable? This is what many regular people ask. What forces are protecting them and how can they be neutralized?
Why hasn’t a recall against Breed been put together?
On Climate:
1) Climate changes, always has, always will. Can we agree on that?
2) Mankind has the ability to influence climate (see “Heat Island”)
3) Here is the rub: On a global scale are we causing the change or just influencing it? Thats where people differ. David Attenborough did some recent documentaries about several ways the worlds biomes are changing.
Also, more people die yearly from cold weather than hot if you believe the science
link to phys.org
Saying the climate has always changed is about as germane as remarking that people have always killed each other when you’re the detective assigned to investigate a homicide. Yes, there have been several periods of mass extinction. There were much hotter and much colder periods, before human beings or even primates/mammals were around. It is exactly our relatively new knowledge of sudden (by geological standards, as appears from the ice cores) climate change that has revealed we cannot just assume the climate will change only very slowly, uniformly, and benignly.
Jeesh. ‘Climate has always changed’. Mankind has not always existed. Most species have gone extinct sooner or later. Sooner or later the solar system will cease to exist, or at least the sun will burn up. Relax, civilizations tend to collapse. Empires tend to fall, stay calm. These are not useful observations or remarks.
Mish – you live in Illinois, a state that is even higher in total taxes than California and much more dysfunctional. I know people who moved to Texas coming back because the taxes on housing wiped out any advantage and they missed California. It is a shame that a thoughtful person like you has fallen for ignorant California hate memes. This country would be a much different place without the state and people of California. We represent the most creative, risk-taking segment of the population. We should be working together to create a better country, not hating one another. You should write about that, not more trash on CA hate.
Where the hell have you been?
I escaped Illinois three years ago and have written on it three and likely referred to it a dozen times or more.
Illinoisans Leave State in Record Numbers, and So Are We
link to mishtalk.com
It takes 3 weeks to escape Illinois
link to mishtalk.com
Escape Illinois: Get The Hell Out Now, We Are
link to mishtalk.com
We moved to Utah over 3 years ago
People are leaving California, Illinois, New York for obvious reasons and all of them deserve the trashing they receive.
The people you know are either not being honest about their reasons or are really poor at personal finance. The median price of a home in California is 785,900 and the average property tax rate is 0.71%. In Texas the median home price is 357,000 and average property tax rate is 1.6%. The difference in property taxes given those numbers is a couple hundred bucks. I don’t think 200 bucks will offset the state income tax.
Corporate taxes. In the 1960s, 1 out of every 3 Federal tax dollars came from corporations. Now it is 1 out of every 8 Federal tax dollars.
MPO… your logic sounds great, but you forgot one thing…. businesses don’t pay those taxes with their money, they pay it with Your money, it’s priced into the product or service you buy from a company… the company only acts as a collection agent..
What every state needs, and especially California,,, is less government spending !!!
Being in favor of a fair share is eminently correct.
Just like campaigning against filth & crime.
Standing against violence & injustice.
What is a fair share?
Almost as difficult a question as what is ownership?
(Virtually all wars & strife are about ownership…)
This article simply highlights the frustration of so many that currently have no choice but to stay in CA. Most currently residing in CA. (Worst State in the Country IMO) are not staying by choice, but do not have the means to leave. Some simply don’t even know what to do, but are drowning and nobody in CA. Will help anybody but themselves.
The Government of CA. is a mirror image of our current Federal Government IMO. They walk and talk the same, and take, take and take some more. No Services or Faulty and Decaying Services AT BEST! Massive Taxation without ANY REPRESENTATION or anything to show for your taxation. Crime Out Of Control, Homelessness Everywhere, Mental Illness Rampant, Decaying Properties, Roads, Bridges, and overall State Infrastructure is in shambles.
The CA. Government, again much like the Federal Government, makes Promise after Unfulfilled Promise to its Citizens, but never, ever do the Promises come, show up, get started or even remotely resemble the so called Promises they offered up. More Misery is what comes, and along it more and more Promises, that of course NEVER MATERIALIZE!!!
California Is One Big Massive Eye Sore On America!!!
But that’s what they vote for, so let them have it the way they want it.
The fair share is the same share for all.
Journalists say: techs must give more, to pay our college degrees (where they barely learn to write, knowing zero about economy or diplomacy)
Why? The federal and state budgets are a game of private interests, shredws get money and clumsies pay double.
I hear the southwest Utah is the new place to be for San Franciscans leaving the city.
st george is now known, unofficially, as “North Las Vegas”
Canada Northwest Territories will become the new go-to destination.
The Bloomberg article is by a long-term San Francisco inhabitant who is worried about the city’s finances tanking because of self-inflicted wounds that caused so many businesses to leave and a collapse in tourism. The city can’t pay its bills now and this genius (I am sure he is) comes up with the idea of taxing the business left more so they will have an incentive to leave also.
1) A project mgr might make $500,000/$1,000,000 with options and bonuses, but
pay taxes on a $250,000 salary.
2) Within the unrealized income they might have bought a $2M/$5M house.
3) NDX double top to save the banks.
4) Zuk & Ilan, two nerds in a cage, what a joke ==> both losers.
1) NDX 3M (quarterly) with a cloud : price is too high above the cloud. T&K clamp is
too wide. Equilibrium is far below. SPX and NDX formed a double top.
2) NDX Lazer : Oct 2011 to Feb 2016 lows. Parallel from Nov 2014 high.
3) The lagging line, 52 quarters to the left, is located between 2009 and 2011 lows.
Within a year Senko B will move up, nonstop. The cloud will flip bend and turn red.
An all time high might delay the flip.
4) The last big red was between Oct 2008 and 2019. The support line :
Oct 1987 to Oct 1990 and Jan 2009 might be breached. Tech analysis, skip.
Are “big tech” “progressive”, except when it comes to their wallets?
This is why smart companies love to use WFH when they can. You don’t have to worry about leasing/maintaining CRE at a super high cost, don’t have to wait with bated breath to see if the current political fashion statement will destroy billions of dollars in established interests/offices…..and your employees can safely watch big cities destroy themselves as every business flees from the comfort of their work computer at home.
While I was being sarcastically snarky, this amount of economic destruction is actually quite sad to see happening in real time. Thousands of small mom and pop businesses have been decimated over the last three years and will continue to be pummeled until this all stops. No one wants to work in big cities and politicians don’t seem to grasp this at all.
While you are correct IMO, most don’t want to stay, but that goes entirely against what Our current Government wants them/you to do! It is also what the current (so called) World Leaders want us to do as well.
To “Control the Masses” they must be rounded up and placed in small controllable pockets or pools of people. The powers, that wish more than ever, to be in Control and to dictate, find Cities the best means to that end. They can Control your transportation by forcing you to use “Public” and not have you drive cars (eventually). They can Control your Housing by forcing you to use “Public” and not have you have the ability to purchase an overly expensive and highly taxed Home (eventually). They can Control your Drink/Food choices, by forcing you to use what is “Publicly Available” and no available space to grow your own (eventually). They can Control your Education by forcing you to use “Public” and let’s face it, Colleges are NOW an extension of “Public School” and run by the Government for the Government (eventually).
So you see it’s all a Plan, that has been in place for quite sometime, but is now in motion. When you look at nearly everything that is happening, it fits this observation perfectly and there is more than enough Proof of its accuracy to be certain…
Yep. See 15 minute cities
Oh my gosh Mish I knew you all those years ago when you hauled ass out of Sacramento for St. George Utah though I still don’t think you really get it! Check out Psalms-127-2-It is senseless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, fearing you will starve to death, for God wants his loved ones to get their proper rest. Then Ecclesiastes 9-9-Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun-all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and your toilsome labor under the sun.
Toot toot!
“solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”
.
“Fair share” has always meant, “I want more of the pie because me-in-tribe, they-not”.
The 45% of people who pay 0 federal income tax are quite certain that the 1% who pay 38% of the federal income tax (and the top 10% who pay 72% of the federal income tax) are not paying enough. As for corporate taxation … when a corporation spends billions and billions paying their employees … they enable a whole lot of taxation
The 45% freeloaders and 1% (who set the agendas) work together and know exactly what they are doing. Tune into radio 820 the Chicago Progressive Station for Joan Esposito (safely ensconced in Winnetka).
Winnetka is no longer safe.
It’s a misconception that these people don’t PAY taxes. They simply have enough deductions to not OWE any tax. Big difference.
Hey down thumbs! Did you just not like the post because you aren’t in the 45% or do you think it is incorrect?
And then there’s the millions and millions the corporations pay their Congresspersons to limit and avoid paying taxes.
As a resident of Chicago, I know the success of “Yellowstone” has reminded us of how little people really need to stay satisfied — all we really need is a horse! But for those of us in high-tax places that dont want to wait 45 minutes for an ambulance (Ive been in pain — you want it handled fast) nor do we want to drive an hour to the nearest WalMart to get a loaf of bread, we understand that these awful taxes that everyone hates goes to the social safety net, schools that arent all failing, gets a cop to your door in minutes instead of hours, streetlights (underrated), close hospitals and colleges for the kids (more schools we seem to hate) … taxes are determined by legislatures, and I doubt they are all tone-deaf. If you want a certain lifestyle, you have to pay for it.
Economic growth comes primarily (today) from communities that offer better amenities.
link to stlouisfed.org
“A final important development that shifted the relative desirability of U.S. regions has been the rising willingness of households to pay for sunshine, beaches and mountains; increasing incomes have allowed households to spend a greater share of their budgets on amenities.4 This development has strongly favored coastal parts of California, but also places like Florida and Texas, where the adoption of residential air conditioning in the mid-20th century made hot summers more tolerable. As predicted by the model, places with good weather have shown growth in both population and costs of living, with relatively slower wage growth.”
How do you think 130 degrees every summer is going to affect the need for Florida, Texas and California beaches? 🙂
It should be good for a few more years. But eventually people will migrate away from areas affected by climate change. After a while people will tire of “indoor days”, when the weather outside is too hot or smoky. They will want to move to areas where they can still buy insurance for their properties. Where there is less chance of floods, fires, droughts, tornadoes hurricanes, heat domes, bomb cyclones, etc.
Anyone know where that is?
Duluth!!!!
Greenland. Go east young man.
We all know you swallowed the Globull warming narrative hook line and sinker PapaDave as the fisherman says you been hooked in the anus may I suggest a place in Antarctica for you .
For some reason I can’t reply directly to bilybobjr so I will reply to my own post.
Thanks for your reply bilybob. You make a VERY convincing argument.
Perhaps I should reconsider my position on global warming and climate change as a result of all the facts and figures you presented.
Now, who should I believe? All the governments around the world that have signed the climate accords; the tens of thousands of scientists that currently work in this field; and the thousands or corporate leaders who all make important decisions because of global warming.
Or
You.
Maybe I should look at it from a financial point of view. My investments and wealth are heavily tied to what all those important decision makers believe and are doing. Should I continue to invest based on their beliefs?
Or yours?
Wow. This is a tough decision! Let me think about it for a few days.
I will get back to you.
“But eventually people will migrate away from areas affected by climate change. ”
You are moving to Mars?
The last glacier stopped only 30 miles north of me. The climate has been unstable for the last two million years.
Kentucky
More people live where the climate is warmer. That made California crowded.
Extreme weather has always occurred, regardless where ever someone has lived. It isn’t a new phenomena. In Southern California, it is extremely dry every summer, like clockwork.
Extreme weather is hyped for political purposes. It’s Gaslighting.
Where? It’s in California and Florida (among others) where the effects of floods, fires, droughts, tornadoes hurricanes, heat domes, bomb cyclones, etc. are bailed out by the Federal Government. I’m hearing you many not be able to purchase private home insurance in Florida because the insurance companies are withdrawing from the state.
For those that don’t believe in climate change but do believe in ‘free markets’ they need to reconcile their cognitive dissonance before they go bankrupt or die.
Here is what climate change deniers keep missing from the free market.
1. Massive destruction keeps happening – I don’t recall in the past 40 years Hawaii burning like what’s happening now. Same for Greece, Portugal and other areas around the world.
2. Insurance companies are bailing – if there is ONE indicator that there is a huge problem it should be the fact that insurance companies are bailing from disaster prone states like California and Florida and more coming soon. This is the ‘free market’ telling everyone something is wrong.
3. Texas power grid keeps failing – In the great state of Texas and electric free markets, the power grid keeps failing with too much extreme cold or extreme heat. And oh yes there are grass fires in the state too.
4. Growth of malaria mosquitos and fungi in states across the US. There is a huge cost to malaria and fungal illnesses and as the earth heats up this will become a larger and larger problem.
5. Excessive heat deaths – More people die from heat related causes than hurricanes, tornado and fires combined. Most of these deaths are elderly so if you’re old, watch out.
There are more but I’m not going to list hundreds of observations here because I continue to research so I can position myself for additional profits but the free market is speaking about climate change, is anyone listening?
Just heat waves alone cost the global economy between $16 and $65 trillion between 1992 and 2013.
link to forbes.com
“ The researchers found that the costs of extreme heat—which has an impact on human health, productivity and agricultural output—have not been borne evenly around the world, with the poorest countries suffering the most.”
Productivity drops dramatically in the heat.
link to lboro.ac.uk
Insurers are not just abandoning people in climate impacted areas, they are also abandoning the worldwide fossil fuel industry.
link to reuters.com
All of which makes it harder for oil and gas companies to keep looking for more reserves now and in the future. Which will continue to tighten oil supply going forward, while demand continues to increase.
A recipe for continued higher prices and profits for those companies. They will be spending less on exploration while raking in the cash flow from their existing reserves.
Got oil?
Since you claim to be into facts,
link to researchgate.net
How did humans cause this?
This is a new paper, Greenland thawed out 400,000 years ago.
link to arstechnica.com
Heat waves would kill way more people than they do now before AC .Look it up thousands would die it would take out the elderly and the weak . Plus they have built and put millions of people in areas that had wild fires Hurricanes and so on . The fact that you still have these storms ,fires and other weather phenomina is not climate change anymore than it has been for millions of years it is just people live in these areas now . A grid down for a week or 2 would take out 10s of thousands of people AC has allowed people to live in areas that people would never lived in in the past.
You can’t reason with kooks, but facts make them angry, and kooks live to be angry… so it’s kind of a friendly gesture to provide facts for them to flip out about.
In Florida, the beach will come to them.
Yep.
link to media.rff.org
Not in your lifetime it won’t Zardoz and if it does it won’t be because of man made c02
Toot toot!
Scott, do you live in Death Valley? It is the only place here in California, that gets up to 130 degrees.
If the temps continue to rise for everyone nearer the equator, the entire model of “retire to the south for the climate (ha?) and the low costs (double ha? — as teachers, cops, etc. start wanting real pay and benefits) could be upended. The new model would be “If you are now stuck in the south with a house no one will buy, all southerners will start buying summer homes in the cooler north. See?
Greenhouse gasses don’t warm the equator. They warm the poles. They actually cool the equator.
You can scream it to the heavens if the bad warmth (IF) arrives where-ever it arrives. And maybe this summer is just a one-off. But if it keeps getting warmer for whatever reason down south, it may change the whole model (move toward summer homes in Idaho and southern homes becoming worthless). 100+ is no longer unusual. Human body starts to shut down at 108. But maybe the gas companies were right all along and we are just imagining it all.
“If you want a certain lifestyle, you have to pay for it.”
If you want a certain life style you have to earn for it. It is the movie stars that live in the mansions of Beverly Hills, not the part time actors who work at Starbucks for most of their income.
Nah. It’s the crypto moguls that live outside of the US and Europe that don’t have to pay.
“Government takes over a third right off the top for someone making $140,000. The state itself takes 8% plus 9.3% of everything over $66,296 up to $338,640 when even higher rates kick in.
…
The California corporate tax rate is 8.84%. This tax rate applies to C corporations and LLCs that report a net profit. Otherwise, they pay a flat alternative minimum tax (AMT) of 6.65%.”
Well you inadvertinly made the case against what you are arguing by pointing out that people pay 30% (or more when you factor in property & sales taxes) while corporations pay 8% or less. The supreme court at one point declared that corporations were “persons” so they should pay the same tax rates that “persons” are payinig which is 30% or more.
There is an easy way to fix this: tax corporations at 30% or allows individuals to get the same write offs & tax breaks that corporations get. I want to depreciate my house the same way a corporation will depreciate a building. If Google got corporate tax breaks for building a new campus then I want those same tax breaks for building a new house since I will be consuming and paying taxes in the state just like a corp will be doing.
There is nothing difficult about “paying fair share” unless one chooses to ignore the blatant discrepancy.
The 8% is the state tax rate. Add in federal taxes and it’s 30% just like individuals.
You can read Alphabet’s 10k for 2022 at the link below. The effective tax rate for google in 2020 and 2021 was 16.2% – data don’t lie only opinionated people.
link to seekingalpha.com
All that would happen if you raised the corporate rate is they would go up
on the product they produce and you and me would end up paying the tax . The company would collect the taxes for the government from you really not that hard to understand .
Actually large corporations also get huge tax writeoffs, and pay 0% effectively. My father worked as a corporate tax lawyer for decades.
You know the main reason for stock buybacks? Its not what most think, that the corporations buy stock to boost stock price. Thats actually a secondary reason. The primary is tax incentives. Huge, massive, tax incentives.Those tax incentives then go right back into corporate profits.
Then there is monetary incentives given by the state of California. You know that Tesla facility in Fremont California? Elon didnt have to pay a dime for that. Now that the state asked for more taxes, he moved to Texas.
Now california is looking to tax everyone that has lived there for 10 years onward regardless of location. You can thank Elon and his ilk for that.
The only way to have a fair tax is a poll tax. Every person on obtaining voting age should pay a poll tax. Scrap every other tax including corporate taxes.
That means no company can get an advantage by fiddling their taxes, no worker can get an advantage by working cash in hand. There is no tax advantage in hiring illegals or paying under the table. Any person found to have not paid the poll tax is prosecuted for tax evasion, fined and/or imprisoned and if illegal then deported. Make limited exemptions for seniors and the handicapped. Also make interstate and overseas visitors pay a pro rata rate based on each days stay.
No taxation without representation also means no representation without taxation.
“The only way to have a fair tax is a poll tax.”
Have you even bothered thinking through that for two seconds (I honesty hope, for your sake, not….)
What on earth is “fair” about someone who, unbeknownst to all, lives underground in a bunker under Idaho, from subsistence raising food worms; hence consumes exactly ZERO of any possible government “service”; paying the same as some guy who, literally, “owns” 100% of America, such that the entire defence budget, infrastructure budget and all else, definitionally goes solely to protecting his “property?”
Instead, and trivially so: What’s “fair” is: Pay for what you consume. Including of government services.
While, if you own nothing for anyone to protect:
-No land, buildings, major (hence taxable in practice) structures and equipment.
-No “patents”.
-No “shares” nor “contracts” requiring an entirely separate sets of courts to adjudicate
-etc., etc.,
You pay nothing.
Whats pure; and again trivially so for anyone even remotely economically literate; idiocy, is “income taxes”, “poll taxes”, “sales taxes” and all the rest. The government incurs NO extra cost from you being paid $100 instead of $10. Nor even $0. Ditto what you pay for a pack of gum. None of that is any business, of any even remotely legitimate government, to even be aware of.
While, OTOH, it is an awful lot more costly to secure a Fort Knox against all and anyone wanting to perpetrate theft, than it is to secure a literal NOTHING. It is the idiocy that this extra cost should somehow NOT be borne by the one who lays claim to “owning” Fort Knox, but instead by “someone else”, according to one brainless woodoo metric or another, which is at the same time “unfair”, massively economically inefficient, and just plain stupid in every way possible.
I don’t like corporate taxation.
It hides the fact that all corporations are simply a legal document, a piece of paper.
Any and all corporate taxes are paid by their customers.
Be honest.
Tax the customers not the corporations.
Elon Musk heard one whiff of “wealth tax” by california and suddenly decided to leave. Quickly. You cannot tax the rich to make up for a dying middle class. The rich are mobile and they will leave. And then all you will have is everyone with an IQ of 100 or less looking for a handout.
Have to disagree… For every Elon that leaves, there are 10 more right behind him.
Free market works both ways…
Yup, 10 more looking to leave.
nice