Seattle leaders have repealed a tax on large companies such as Amazon and Starbucks after businesses fought the measure aimed at combating a growing homelessness crisis.
The City Council voted 7-2 Tuesday to reverse a tax that it unanimously approved just a month ago to help provide services in the city. The Seattle region has one of the highest homelessness numbers in the U.S.
Amazon, Starbucks and other businesses sharply criticized the tax as misguided.
The online retailer, the city’s largest employer, even temporarily halted construction planning on a new high-rise building near its Seattle headquarters in protest.
Mayor Jenny Durkan and a majority of the council have said they scrapped the tax to avoid a costly political fight as a coalition of businesses moved to get a referendum overturning the tax on the November ballot.
https://apnews.com/74bb33316915407ea73c8e4938802532Here is one key issue intrinsic to
regulation which might need to be resolved.
That is to say regulation has a tendency to reward the biggest and richest players in the game. Large corporations like amazon often receive subsidies, tax cuts and other advantages which could guarantee that smaller businesses could never hope to compete.
One question here may be: do large financial players like banks receive unfair advantages as well over smaller and less established financial entities like bitcoin or crypto currencies? Perhaps bitcoin could use tax cuts similar to what amazon has to ensure it has a fair and level playing field against banks and other large institutions?
