{"id":16608,"date":"2018-05-21T18:30:57","date_gmt":"2018-05-21T18:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ceo-na.com\/?p=16608"},"modified":"2018-05-24T16:28:08","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T16:28:08","slug":"amazon-starbucks-oppose-seattle-tax-fight-homelessness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/business\/management-leadership\/amazon-starbucks-oppose-seattle-tax-fight-homelessness\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon and Starbucks Oppose Seattle Tax to Fight Homelessness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazon and Starbucks have hit out at a decision to impose a new tax to help fight homelessness in Seattle.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Seattle is introducing a new tax on large employers that will help fund homelessness and affordable housing programs\u2014despite opposition from major companies such as Amazon and Starbucks.<\/p>\n

The Seattle City Council voted unanimously for the new tax, saying it will raise $47m to tackle a housing affordability crisis due to a recent economic boom. But local firms claim it will kill jobs and investment.<\/p>\n

Amazon, the U.S. city’s number one employer, said the levy could put future expansion on hold in the region<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“We remain very apprehensive about the future created by the council’s hostile approach and rhetoric toward larger businesses,” said Amazon’s vice president Drew Herdener<\/a> following the vote. “[It] forces us to question our growth here.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Starbucks said<\/a>: “This City continues to spend without reforming and fail without accountability.”<\/p>\n

The tax will apply to companies with annual sales of least $20m a year, working out at about $275 annually for each worker. The money will be spent on building more affordable housing and support services for the homeless.<\/p>\n

Supporters of the tax cite data showing Seattle’s median home prices<\/a> have soared to $820,000, and more than 41% of renters are classed as “rent-burdened.” That means they spend around a third of their income on housing.<\/p>\n

Seattle: the third-largest concentration of homeless people in the U.S.<\/strong><\/h6>\n

The levy is expected to be imposed on about 500 companies, including Seattle-headquartered firms such as department store chain Nordstrom and coffee chain Starbucks.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

“Public investments alone won’t end homelessness. City partnerships with private sector firms and nonprofits is another path that can help ease the crunch”, (tdn.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

It will also affect the California-based tech giants Apple, Google and Facebook, which have a big presence in the city. But Seattle’s Chamber of Commerce said that “taxing jobs will not fix our region’s housing and homelessness problems”.<\/p>\n

And Amazon, which has led local business opposition to the levy, previously warned the levy could put more than 7,000 new jobs at risk.<\/p>\n

Following Monday’s vote, the e-commerce giant said it would go ahead with plans to build a major new office building in the city centre, despite an earlier threat to shelve the move.<\/p>\n

However, it said it was now evaluating whether to lease space in a second office tower, meaning it may move some planned jobs elsewhere.<\/p>\n

John Kelley, senior vice president for Starbucks Global Public Affairs, said: “No one believes they will be able to make housing affordable or address opiate addiction [through this tax].”<\/p>\n

In the opinion of CNN Money analyst Dylan Byers, both sides are to blame for complicating the issue. In an op-ed published May 15<\/a>, he wrote: \u201cThe homelessness epidemic is the inconvenient truth of the tech boom that has fueled growth in Seattle, the Bay Area and Los Angeles, and its a problem for both city governments and the tech companies in their area.<\/p>\n

\u201cCity leaders and tech CEOs should own it,\u201d he continued. \u201cThere is a massive opportunity to innovate on solving this issue. Doing it now would save lives (and generate good press). Avoiding it will yield massive problems down the line.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amazon and Starbucks have hit out at a decision to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":16609,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1040,1042,1041],"class_list":["post-16608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management-leadership","tag-homeless","tag-seattle-tax","tag-tax-to-fight-homelessness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16608"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16623,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16608\/revisions\/16623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}