Article from Daily Wire by Frank Camp.
It was reported on Monday that the city of Seattle plans to introduce a “tax of $275 per employee, per year on for-profit companies that gross at least $20 million per year” in order to generate money to help the homeless.
According to The Seattle Times, what this means is that “about 3 percent of Seattle businesses will be taxed, raising about $47 million per year.” The city council also “approved a nonbinding resolution that calls for spending 66 percent of the new money on affordable housing, 32 percent on emergency shelter, trash pickup, raises for service workers and other needs, and 2 percent on administration,” the outlet adds.
Some who support the legislation claim that companies like Amazon, which will see a significant tax, are responsible for increased homelessness because their employees have driven up rent costs in the city, forcing those who can no longer afford housing onto the streets.
According to the Seattle government’s official website, the city’s adopted 2018 budget is a whopping $5.6 billion. Out of that $5.6 billion, $477.8 million is going to the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT).
Read the entire article at Reason.
Image Credit: By Daniel Schwen (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons