Tax for what now?

Another tax on job producers

THE COST of a newspaper subscription is worth the entertainment alone, and worth more if you ponder all the news coming from California. Now comes something called a homeless tax.

No, it’s not a tax on the homeless. Keep up with us:

It’s no secret San Francisco has one of the largest homeless populations in the country at around 7,000 people. (That’s enough people to fill Farmington.) The press reports that the median house price there recently hit $1.6 million, and apartments usually rent for more than $3,000 a month. Yikes.

Last Tuesday, 60 percent of San Francisco residents continued the tradition of voting to spend other people’s money with the passage of Proposition C. What did this little beauty do? We’ll let the

San Francisco Chronicle explain:

“It will charge corporations with revenue above $50 million about 0.5 percent in gross receipts tax, with the proceeds going entirely toward homeless programs. Budget analysts estimate it will raise between $250 million and $300 million a year—nearly doubling the amount already being spent on homeless services and housing.”

The biggest corporations, which are the powerhouses of San Francisco’s local economy, will now be hit with millions of dollars in extra taxes to pay for homeless services the companies likely want nothing to do with. It’s not hard to imagine why Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and others were against this measure.

On display here is the basic idea that you can’t just arbitrarily come up with a social cause and demand that corporations pay for it. It would be nice if all homeless people had access to the shelter and services they need. But is it the responsibility of large corporations to fund those services?

What do San Francisco corporations get out of giving the local government millions of extra tax dollars to be spent on homeless services? Maybe fewer panhandlers bugging their employees? There are better ways to handle aggressive panhandling.

If the ballot measure had been to raise local sales or property taxes for the homeless, San Francisco residents might have voted another way. But it’s okay if you spend the money of large corporations.

Because all they do is provide local jobs and tax dollars.