Proposed Tax Initiatives For Discussion Nov. LPSF Meeting 11/14

Discussion
1

Dear All;

Attached and below are two proposed tax initiatives for San Francisco for discussion purposes for this Saturdays Nov.14 LPSF meeting. They were written for tax relief new first time buyers and license and permit fees relief for new business owners. They are kept simple by design. They are for discussion purposes and are not carved in granite.

Ron Getty - Chair Initiatives Committee
Hostis Res Publica
Morte Ai Tiranni
Dum Spiro, Pugno

                     Tax Relief for First-Time Home Buyers

In the interest of fostering a family friendly environment in San Francisco we do hereby ordain
the following. All first-time home buyers in San Francisco will be exempted from all property and parcel taxes for a period of 5 years
from the date of purchase of their home.

The tax assessor will calculate the amount of reduced tax
revenue. This amount will then be shared equally in all major San Francisco City and
County departments with an appropriate reduction in their budgets. No
additional revenue sources will be authorized to “make good” the amount of
property tax reduction.

                        Tax
Relief for Small Business Owners

In the interest of fostering private employment in San Francisco we do hereby ordain the following. All new start-up
businesses will be exempted from paying any license or business permit fees for
a period of 5 years from start up. The start up date will be based on the date
of application for a City business license. This will equally apply to any
existing business opening a branch operation in the City of San Francisco.

To lighten the economic burden during these economic times existing
businesses with payroll taxes of less than $500,000 will be exempted from paying
any annual license or permit fees for a period of 5 years from the date of
enactment of the ordinance.

To further foster employment opportunities all mandatory
benefit and payroll tax requirements will be waived for a period of 5 years
from the date of opening the new business or branch operation

The total aggregate amount of reduced revenue will be shared
equally by all major City and County departments with an appropriate reduction
in the budgets. No additional revenue sources will be authorized to “make good”
the amount of business license and permit fees.

noon8window.pdf (36 Bytes)

2

Ron,

  If we're back to talking about ballot initiatives again, I strongly feel that any ballot measure we initiate should be something that will appeal to the left (at least for our first effort). Tax relief for business owners and home buyers, while these would certainly be laudable policy changes, don't really meet that criterion. Here are a few alternative possibilities I request we add to any agenda item involving discussion of potential initiatives:

-a measure to decriminalize prostitution (some of the folks who worked on Prop. K which got 42% of the vote last year have been talking about another measure, so we'd have allies on this one)
-a measure to cap city salaries at $99,999
-a measure to make the SFPD more accountable (e.g. requiring immediate release of police reports, badge numbers printed football jersey style on their uniforms, etc.)

  I'm probably forgetting one or more other measures we've talked about here before that I think would be good to champion. However, I haven't seen evidence that the LPSF has enough people willing to do the work to mount a ballot drive effort on our own for such a project to make sense. So my recommendation would actually be to skip the entire item, because I don't see how it will be productive. Unless we have volunteers who want to commit to doing the work.

Love & Liberty,
        ((( starchild )))