Said nobody involved with any big business. Amazon in New York, Apple’s avoidance of repatriating cash, etc. Taxes have a massive impact on business decisions all of the time.
This kind of ignorant thinking is what destroyed the yacht manufacturing industry in the US. “Oh, what difference can a small tax make? Whoops, doesn’t matter because I’m a politician and I’m immune to consequences.”
But they do business where they need/want to do business, regardless of the tax situation. Complaining about taxes is just an attempt at leverage to get tax rebates/concessions/exemptions/etc or to structure the final holding company in a way that artificially shields profits so the executives can pay themselves larger salaries and bonuses.
Source: I was a former tax/legal advisor for a number of multinational companies. Out of a few hundred tax structurings, I can count on one hand the number of times that tax rate differentials affected material operational decisions.
“Alex Tourk, spokesman for sf.citi, a tech business group, said San Francisco needs to consider changes to its business taxes. The city is currently reviewing the tax system, which brings in a total of $1 billion annually. But those taxes could climb higher under the revised system.
“Unfortunately, Stripe choosing to leave town is not an anomaly,” he said. “The membership of sf.citi would prefer a more holistic strategy per the mayor’s suggestion that we work together as a collective business community to fix the gross receipts tax once and for all and establish a fair and equitable tax system that we can all rely on.”
Chris Thornberg, founder of Beacon Economics, said businesses leaving San Francisco has more to do with real estate costs and high wages than taxes.
“Taxes don’t have a lot of impact on business decisions. It’s something that has been exaggerated for years,” Thornberg said. Stripe is staying in the Bay Area, so its departure isn’t a blow to the region, he said.”