The San Francisco Board of Supervisors caved into Twitter’s demands for payroll tax exemptions. The city would allow exempt Twitter from paying the payroll tax on new hires for six years and they would also be exempt from paying the tax on compensation tied to stock options.

Twitter had threatened to leave San Francisco and take 350 employees to a new office in Brisbane that would have been shared with Wal-Mart.

This has angered many local businesses and residents in San Francisco who receive no breaks. Now companies located in other parts of the city are starting to ask — and soon may demand — that the proposed tax exemption be extended to other parts of the city so they, too, could benefit and make a commitment to remain in San Francisco.

Here is what angry residents had to say to the SFChronicle:

mreedoak
9:06 AM on March 24, 2011
Buy an older residential building in a depressed neighborhood and you have rent control determining how much you can charge.

Be a start up that wants to move in and you get tax breaks and free money from an IPO.

Guess it is better to limit speach to 140 characters than provide housing in this city.

cruella
12:41 AM on March 24, 2011
“get a pass on paying the tax on compensation tied to stock options.”

If you want to report honestly on the issue you should note that this stock option tax is unprecedented and not part of the tax structure of any other major city. Giving companies a break from this special tax is not a give-awaly. Please do a little digging, or apply some common sense to the issue.

elpookie
12:32 AM on March 24, 2011
SF Board, you are giving prostitution a bad name. If the public is going to get 0000ed we should get some stock options in lieu of payroll taxes. If the company does as well as it imagines, they can buy back the options at the price which will compensate for the payroll tax and keep the balance.

thatsthewayitis
10:55 PM on March 23, 2011
This is no DEAL this is a giveaway orchestrated I believe by Newsom Willy Brown etc with their puppet their “working mayor” Ed Lee …if this was a negotiation the payroll exemption might be given but to also give AWAY the stock options denys SF ever coverning costs for this Corporation and it is idiotic municipal policy (thanks Ed Lee)….

tipster
10:35 PM on March 23, 2011
“they also would get a pass on paying the tax on compensation tied to stock options

That’s what this is REALLY about, isn’t it. All those twitter employees have been working in SF, getting stock options as the primary form of compensation all this time, avoiding taxes on the stock options (which are seen as having no value at the time they are issued because the price of the option is worth the value of the stock at the time) thereby only paying taxes on the actual pay, which is only a fraction of the compensation they have been paying out. They make one quick move to a blighted area, dodge the tax on all that past compensation, which is huge, and then bail.

This is completely unfair to the businesses who HAVE been paying taxes on their compensation. If twitter is such a tax dodger that they would make a move like this, let them leave. It’s 350 employees, an not worth setting a precedent.

ianto39
9:21 PM on March 23, 2011
So SF can’t keep new employers without exempting them from it’s taxes. And it can’t pay it’s bills without collecting those taxes. Luckily we have a career City employee for mayor now, he’s bound to make the tough calls.

panotademocrat
9:14 PM on March 23, 2011
If you promise to bend over and become a socialist in the “belly of the beast” the beast will give you a tax break. Run Twitter run!

zeta71
8:36 PM on March 23, 2011
Oh, I forgot to add that renters should not have to pay sales tax. If it’s good enough for Twitter, it’s good enough for all SF citizens.

zeta71
8:35 PM on March 23, 2011
Dear SF Supervisors: Will you please give all homeowners a tax break (i.e., allow all homeowners to not pay taxes for a specified time, let’s say 50 years or so).

thatsthewayitis
7:59 PM on March 23, 2011
“they also would get a pass on paying the tax on compensation tied to stock options.”

Twitter is shameless to extort this kind of deal from a city that they will now be the officially RICHEST deadbeat corporation of the city by the bay instead of WANTING to contribute to San Francisco….You would thinki they would want to be a good neighbor and corporate citizen and pay back something of what is extreme good fortune to SF instead now they look like a greedy deadbeat.

helpmeout
7:54 PM on March 23, 2011
I live in the Mission- and we have just as many problems as the Mid-market area. If a big company moves here, will they get a tax break- or all the companies that are already in the area get same deal?

Seems like a sweet-heart deal for one company. I say we give deal to everyone.

Does Mayor Lee understand the economy sucks for everyone these days- not just for people in the loin.

kcassidy
7:53 PM on March 23, 2011
If SF was actually serious about getting more businesses to relocate or stay here it would eliminate the payroll tax for all businesses. That would help keep the people who live here be able to find a job here instead of commuting out of the City each day.

bostonianinsf
7:22 PM on March 23, 2011
I cannot wait for the day when it will be reasonable to leave the Westfield Center and walk west down Market St – without fear – and have a quiet drink at the Buck Tavern.

nezumi
7:13 PM on March 23, 2011
Gosh nothing EVER comes to the Richmond District.

The last time we got anything from City Hall it was to denude the ivy in the median on Geary Blvd. when Pope John Paul I visited in his Popemobile close to 30 years ago.