SEATTLE — The Latest on a Seattle plan to tax businesses to fight homelessness (all times local):<\/p>\n
4:20 p.m.<\/p>\n
The Seattle City Council has approved a tax on large businesses such as Amazon and Starbucks to fight homelessness.<\/p>\n
The council on Monday unanimously backed a compromise tax plan that will charge large businesses about $275 per full-time worker a year. It’s lower than the $500-per-worker tax initially proposed.<\/p>\n
The tax would begin in 2019 and raise about $48 million a year to pay for affordable housing and homeless services.<\/p>\n
Some council members acknowledged it wasn’t enough to address urgent housing needs but conceded they couldn’t get the six votes needed to override a potential veto by the mayor.<\/p>\n
Other cities have implemented similar taxes, but critics say Seattle’s tax could threaten the booming local economy and drive away jobs.<\/p>\n
Supporters say businesses that have benefited from Seattle’s prosperity and contributed to growing income inequality should pay.<\/p>\n
——<\/p>\n
6 a.m.<\/p>\n
A divided Seattle City Council is expected to vote Monday on a proposal to tax large businesses to fight homelessness.<\/p>\n
The plan that advanced out of committee on a 5-4 vote Friday would tax large businesses such as Amazon and Starbucks about $500 a year per worker. It would raise about $75 million a year for homeless services and affordable housing.<\/p>\n
But Mayor Jenny Durkan and four other councilmembers support a smaller tax proposal that would charge about $250 a year per worker and raise $40 million a year.<\/p>\n
Bill sponsors need five votes to pass the measure but six votes to override a mayoral veto.<\/p>\n
The so-called “head tax” has been hotly debated in recent weeks at raucous meetings and rallies.<\/p>\n
Amazon raised the stakes when it announced it would halt construction planning on a 17-story tower near its hometown headquarters pending the outcome of the tax vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SEATTLE — The Latest on a Seattle plan to tax businesses to fight homelessness (all times local): 4:20 p.m. The Seattle City Council has approved a tax on large businesses such as Amazon and Starbucks to fight homelessness. The council on Monday unanimously backed a compromise tax plan that will charge large businesses about $275 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9455"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9455"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9458,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9455\/revisions\/9458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}