‘Tech tax’: San Francisco mulls plan for taxing the rich to house the poor

A payroll levy on the city’s largest tech companies – such as Google,
Twitter, Uber and Airbnb – aims to tackle inequality, but some have
savaged the proposal

Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisco
Friday 1 July 2016 17.21 BST

San Francisco’s long, complex and often fraught relationship with the tech industry has come to a head with a proposal to levy a “tech tax” on the companies that have fueled the city’s transformation into a place that is increasingly uninhabitable for people on low or medium incomes.

Under the plan, large tech employers in the city, potentially including Google, Twitter, Uber, Airbnb and Salesforce, would be required to pay a 1.5% payroll tax. The estimated $120m in annual revenue would be used to fund affordable housing and services for the city’s large homeless population.

Local politicians are seeking to put the bill to a citywide vote in November, a move that would mark the culmination of years of boom that have rendered San Francisco one of the most unequal places in the US.

It is a city where 57.4% of homes are worth more than $1m, but hundreds of people sleep in tents on the street every night.

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