The Seattle Head Tax: Most Flourishing Businesses (Essay Sample)

Student’s Name
Institution
Course
Date
The Seattle Head Tax
Sometimes last month, the Seattle City Council approved a head tax on some of the City’s most flourishing businesses. The bill was accented into law by the Seattle mayor, citing the urgent need for redress of affordability of residence and the homelessness crises. The same have elicited various views, the most diametrically opposed and equally competing being the City Council and the businessmen. The idea is to tax every employee resident of Seattle working for corporations that make more than $. 20 million annually. The tax is in addition to the already exorbitant tax regime that Seattle residents are already struggling to keep up with. Indeed the intentions of the legislators are prudent, however, it comes at a great expense and raises a myriad of concerns.
One dilemma obviously faces anyone willing to indulge in this conversation in that while it presents a noble cause, the same infringes on the people’s personal liberty and narrowly borders an oppressive regime. Already taxation feels like punishment for economic success adding an additional tax class only serves to raise more eyebrows. America is largely a capitalist society whose economic and social welfares are greatly shaped by capitalist market trends. What the Seattle City Council has done is introduce aspects of communism which America generally abhors. It is unreasonable to compel an individual to help the needy without offering them the choice to decide whether to help or not.
In many ways, the new law comes off as discriminatory because unlike other taxation classes that target profits made by anyone, this tax only targets employees of certain companies their earnings notwithstanding. This is a ridiculous proposition because it is discriminatory on the ground of financial welfare. Its unconstitutionality comes in the sense that the constitution expressly outlaws discrimination of whatever kind. It would be a different thing all together if the tax applied to all employees in general. Currently only employees of companies that make $. 20 million and above shall be taxed. Their counterparts in other employments shall not be taxed even if they earn more money.
There are also concerns as to the accountability in as far as the collection and use of these funds are concerned. In fact a significant portion of those repulsed by this notion are of the opinion that the city should roll out a more definite plan of how these funds are to be used beyond the acclamation that they will be spent on construction of houses. At the current rate, the city will be collecting close to $. 100 million annually which money is of a substantial amount? If a definite financial plan is not drawn up as to the mode of collection and application of this funds are not employed, theft or misappropriation of these funds is inevitable. This is not the first time Seattle is introducing the head tax. The one launched in 2006 was abandoned because it was difficult to implement.
The financial accountability for businesses is profoundly negative. Reasons are that these huge corporations are in business to be profitable. The Head tax will ultimately cut into their profit margins thus will force these companies to re-evaluate weather they will continue to thrive in the Seattle business market. This may mean that they will downsize on their employee base and relocate to another city where there is no head tax. The financial impact on all companies that the proposed head tax is going to be broad spectrum. Many businesses in Seattle raise concerns on the head tax is to be assessed, will this be based on per employee per year in 2019 and 2020, or a payroll percentage tax as proposed in 2021 for the remainder of the tax bill term. Some concerns that these businesses are facing is increased tax burden, and that these businesses will cancel the benefits of the employees. This tax is going to be passed on to all consumers in some form or another. The unfortunate consequence is that businesses may opt to lay off people in order to cope with the economic trends.
The city council’s preliminary spending plan which includes the majority of the coffers to be focused to reasonably priced housing (In other words, the city is adopting a pay as you go model of taxation rather than issuing bonds). With the new spending plan that is proposed there is some concerns that these housing investments are really 20-year commitments, which includes operations, maintence for permanent supportive housing and rental subsidies. After the five year proposed head tax bill, there are no statutory provisions in ...