San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee is making the case for the city’s Proposition E, which would phase out the city’s payroll tax for businesses and replace it with a sales tax. The move, he says, will bring 10,000 new jobs in two years.
Currently, San Francisco is the only California city that has its own payroll tax, which is levied at 1.5 percent of a company’s entire payroll. Last year, the city temporarily suspended that tax for two blighted areas of the city, which have seen a boom in growth and investment. With that success, the city had hoped to take the plan onto a larger scale. But businesses wanted assurances the breaks wouldn’t be temporary.
Proposition E would tax businesses with more than $1 million in receipts between .075 and .65 percent, with rates determined by type of business and business volume. They would be phased in over five years.
The hope is that the city can capitalize on its diverse culture and proximity to Silicon Valley, and further grow its technology portfolio.
Read the full story at Bloomberg Businessweek.