Friday, May 4, 2018

Bezos Goes to War With Seattle; Halts Construction of New Office Building


Jeff Bezos is threatening to go near-Howard Roark as lefty Seattle wants to institute yet even one more tax on the city's producers.

Amazon has halted development of a new 17-story building in Seattle, threatening to ditch the plans altogether unless the city withdraws a proposed new tax.



Drew Herdener, vice president at Amazon, said the online retailer also may not occupy space in another skyscraper currently in development in the city, and that they may instead choose to sublet it.

“I can confirm that pending the outcome of the head tax vote by City Council, Amazon has paused all construction planning on our Block 18 project in downtown Seattle and is evaluating options to sub-lease all space in our recently leased Rainer Square building."

The so-called "head tax" would charge 26 cents per employee per hour for Seattle-based companies with $20 million or more in annual sales, affecting 585 of Seattle’s largest businesses.

Amazon employs some 45,000 in Seattle, which would mean a tax for Amazon of $93,600 per day, assuming all the workers are full-time 8-hour workers.

Including the boost in Christmas shopping season employees, it is estimated that Amazon’s tax obligation under the proposal would be around $39 million a year.

Is it any surprise that Amazon is looking for a location for a "second" headquarters?

The council will vote on the proposal on May 14.

-Robert Wenzel  

(Sources: ZeroHedge,The Daily Caller)

2 comments:

  1. I’m guessing the “head tax” has been sold as effecting “big business”. But $20 million is not really that much in annual sales. I have worked for a concrete construction company that was doing $12 million a year with 75 employees. It would have taken another 40 employees to get to $20 million. Even if we had to double the 75 employees to get to $20 million, is a company that employs 150 people considered a big business?

    Of course some of the work that concrete construction company (and many smaller companies) performed was to help build improvements for truly big companies such as Amazon.

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  2. I'm sure Besos is in favor of higher taxes as long as they don't affect him.

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