Two Heartening Responses to Seattle’s Self-Destructive Tax Grab

I wrote last July about how greedy politicians in Seattle, Washington, were trying to impose a local income tax.

That effort has been stymied since there’s anti-income-tax language in the state constitution (Washington is one of nine states without that punitive levy), but that doesn’t mean the city’s tax-and-spend crowd has given up.

There’s a proposal for a new scheme to impose a “head tax” on successful companies.

The top three percent of the high grossing businesses in Seattle will carry the load of Seattle’s proposed employee head tax. Backers are calling it the “Progressive Tax on Business.” The tax will apply only to those companies with $20 million or more annually in taxable gross receipts as measured under the City’s Business and Occupation tax. The city estimates that will be 500 businesses. …the tax is based on total revenues and not net-income. …Councilmember Mike Obrien has been pushing to a head tax for two years and doesn’t believe businesses will leave Seattle because of it.

I suppose this might be a good opportunity to point out that this tax is bad for growth and that it will encourage out-migration from the city.

Or perhaps I could make a wonky point about how this tax is related to the income tax in the same way a gross receipts tax is related to a sales tax.

But I’m motivated instead to focus on the very heartening response to this tax grab by both business and labor.

Here’s how the city’s leading employer is responding.

Amazon is…making its opposition known to a proposed Seattle tax by bringing a halt to all planning on a massive project scheduled for construction in Downtown Seattle, and may tweak its plans to occupy a new downtown skyscraper. “I can confirm that pending the outcome of the head tax vote by City Council, Amazon has paused all construction planning on our Block 18 project in downtown Seattle and is evaluating options to sub-lease all space in our recently leased Rainier Square building,” says Amazon Vice President Drew Herdener. …Jon Scholes, president of the Downtown Seattle Association, said the City Council should take heed of Amazon’s decision.

But some of the class-warfare politicians are oblivious to real-world concerns.

Two supporters of the tax, City Council members Kshama Sawant and Mike O’Brien, seemed unmoved by Amazon’s decision. “I understand Amazon doesn’t like it. I’m sure they would love to go to a city that has no taxes. And maybe they will find that place,” O’Brien said. …Added Sawant, “Amazon is perfectly capable of paying that, double, even four times that.” She also called Amazon’s tactic “extortion.”

I don’t know if Sawant is an idiot or a demagogue. What’s she’s basically arguing is that if a victim runs away from a mugger, the victim is an extortionist.

Wow, that’s a novel (and French) way of looking at the world.

That being said, there’s probably nothing surprising about the business community resisting a tax on business. So here’s the part of the story that really warms my heart.

Private-sector workers also are protesting.

Construction workers shouted down Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant on Thursday as she attempted to speak in favor of Seattle ‘s proposed new “head tax” at an open-air news conference. The construction workers shouted “No head tax!” each time Sawant tried to speak in favor of the measure… The conference, held outside Amazon’s Spheres, was intended to show support for the head tax and opposition to Amazon’s announcement of a construction pause on a massive downtown construction project. But the group of about 20 construction workers showed up and drowned out Sawant’s message. …construction workers…praised Amazon for providing well-paying jobs to thousands of Seattle-area residents.

Unsurprisingly, Ms. Sawant doesn’t care about workers. She simply wants the money so she can buy votes.

Amazon would pay more than $20 million of that total under the proposal. …Sawant maintains that Amazon could easily afford to pay that amount.

Let’s close with some good news. Seattle isn’t normally considered a hotbed of free market thinking (though a disproportionate share of my readers are in the state of Washington).

So I’m guessing Ms. Sawant and her greedy colleagues probably are not very happy about this (admittedly unscientific) polling data.

This is very encouraging. Hopefully it’s a sign of the good things that can happen with private workers (unionized or not) and private employers join forces to protect themselves from politicians.

It will be interesting to see how the City Council responds. If they move forward with this tax grab, Seattle truly will be in the running to the Greece of America.

And if that trend continues, don’t be surprised if Amazon’s soon-to-be-announced second headquarters eventually morphs into its primary headquarters (hopefully without any cronyism).

P.S. It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyhow) that the state of Washington should never, ever, allow a state income tax.