Head Tax

Seattle is currently making the national and international news with its plan to tax the highest earning companies in the city to pay towards helping the homeless.  I’m not really sure how I feel about this.  Seattle definitely has a homeless problem, and companies like Amazon have grown exponentially and caused the cost of living in the city to sky rocket.  But is it right to tax successful and profitable companies in this manner – particularly the smaller companies?  It hardly encourages further growth and prosperity.  I do think Amazon has to do more to help the city – the first thing that crosses my mind is dealing with the traffic problems it has helped create.  But the city clearly already has a huge portion of its budget being spent to deal with homelessness, and it makes you wonder where all that money is currently going.  A tricky problem, with no easy solution and no solution that is ever going to appease everybody.