for SF Mayor
1. Leon Phat will fast track business development in San Francisco and California. Entrepreneurs and businessfolk will receive VIP treatment and their businesses will be fully turn-key from the City's perspective in 60 days or less, with a goal of one month. All requirements, including site building/improvements requirements listed in full within one month of application, and all licenses issued within two weeks of satisfaction of those requirements.
2. No business taxes! Simple. No business taxes. Phat wants your energy and economic endeavor in San Francisco.
How do we pay for this service?
First through the Community Benefit District Land Rent Tax (CBDLRT).
Second through the Land Value Tax (LVT) when it comes on line. LVT will supercede and replace Community Benefit Districts throughout the state.
Never forget that taxes on land values don't add any cost to anyone. They are not an "add-on" tax. Instead, they retrieve the value added by community to the rent you already pay.
If you're a land owner, land value tax reduces the sales price of land, meaning the mortgage on land value comes down just as the tax on land value goes up. If the land value tax collected 100% of the potential rent, there would be no sales price of land . . . no mortgage on land value!
Land values are community
The usual, knee-jerk thought of loads of well-intentioned, but seriously half-educated San Francisco progressives is that Business should pay its fair share of taxes.
What's half-educated about that? Simply this: part of Businesses' incomes come from hard work making goods and services for other people. There's nothing wrong there. And there's no reason to tax it.
With many businesses, however, there is income merely from their ownership of natural resources--oil in the ground for Chevron and Exxon and BP, for instance--, or income from merely owning urban and industrial land--commercial real estate, for instance (think Lennar).
Income derived from mere ownership of nature doesn't represent any effort made by Business. It's good to tax away ALL of that sort of income.
That's why Leon wants to create CBD's which collect all of the value added to nature by the existence of community. Value gets added to land by the existence of public transportation, fire protection, and the growth of San Francisco and California.
So don't be half-educated! Actual work done is a good thing: don't tax it .
Land values aren't created by the land owner: tax them away for the community.
Copyright 2010 Leion Phat for SF Supervisor. All rights reserved.