Today in Seattle: Voting to tax businesses $500/employee to pay for homeless

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After weeks of tense and raucous meetings, a divided Seattle City Council is voting Monday whether to tax the city's largest businesses to raise money to fight homelessness.

Councilmembers who advanced a proposal out of committee on a 5-4 vote Friday want businesses with more than $20 million in gross revenues, such as Amazon and Starbucks, to pay roughly $500 a year per full-time worker.

The so-called "head tax," or tax on employee hours, would raise about $75 million a year to build affordable housing units and pay for homeless services.

Nearly 600 businesses would pay the head tax, but Amazon, the city's largest employer, would take the biggest hit. The company has more than 45,000 workers, and would pay more than $20 million a year under the tax. It would likely owe even more when the tax switches to a 0.7 percent tax on business payroll in 2021.

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Supporters say businesses that have benefited from Seattle's prosperity and contributed to growing income inequality can and should pay.

We need "to make sure we have a livable city for everybody in our community and that there's a sense of shared prosperity and shared responsibility," Councilmember Mike O'Brien said Friday after the council meeting.

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