"The cooperation felt like a good omen after the sector refused a seat on the 2018 progressive revenue task force and eventually hammered in the nail on the head tax’s coffin."

The business sector had nothing to do with the head tax repeal. The Seattle City Council itself decided to voluntarily repeal the tax in a 7-2 vote, presumably reversing course in the hope of advancing their own political careers.

If these programs are such a good idea then the City Council should cut something else.

Cut the taxes, but only on the condition that the companies revoke working from home for at least 4 days a week. Downtown needs the foot traffic. Let people work from home on Friday. We aren’t barbarians.

Jumpstart isn’t going anywhere but I doubt it will meet the projections laid out in this article. With many companies downsizing and remote work seemingly here to stay for good I don’t see how it’s going to grow much if at all in the next few years.

The whole progressive task force seems like a colossal waste of time and energy. Are they really going to come up with some tax scheme that hasn’t already been discussed? Seems doubtful. I’m sure they are just biding their time hoping the SC allows for an income tax. If they don’t then the city is in for some lean years.

The JumpStart tax isn’t even all that progressive. It has all of two tax brackets, the absolute bare minimum required for the “progressive” label. Furthermore, it’s ludicrously easy for large employers to avoid, by reassigning their virtual workers to virtual offices outside of Seattle. Meanwhile, small businesses, like family-owned groceries and restaurants, will continue to pay. JumpStart will become just another regressive flat tax.

Go ahead and tax the living "sh-t" out of the businesses. Raise the minimum wage, Defund the police. Raise the fees and B&O tax. Increase the parking rates. Go forward into the night to "fight the good fight"....keep the red flag flying.

It was predicted downtown would look like downtown Detroit. They were of course wrong ... it looks worse.

The result will be fewer and fewer businesses: A "jump start tax" x "no business" = "no tax".

The far left will have their "victory", raise the tax... and then see if there are any businesses left to pay it.

@1: No Tax on Jobs received funding from businesses, of course, but the part of the story the Stranger’s writers cannot mention is the 47,000 signatures No Tax on Jobs collected in a very short amount of time, against less than 18,000 valid signatures required to put the head tax on the ballot for repeal. The sheer size of the outpouring of public support against the tax meant the City Council Members were not willing to appear on the same ballot with the tax repeal, and so Mayor Durkan easily organized the Council to repeal it ahead of any possible referendum vote.

The Stranger and the activist class simply declared that widespread public support against themselves and their causes was doubleplus unpossible, and the Stranger duly rammed all 47,000 signatures up its Memory Hole, where they remain to this day, unmentioned and forever unmentionable.

Obviously we need to cut the police budget by twice as much as any corporate tax breaks ...

Hmm, why did they go quiet all of a sudden?

@8: “Hmm, why did they go quiet all of a sudden?”

Because they know SPD is chronically understaffed, therefore your proposal is insane, and so your saying it aloud shocked them into disbelieving silence at your ignorant effrontery?

@10 it would also be a violation of the city charter which is why the council rapidly backed off defunding the police by 50% back in 2020.

@11: And, as Our Very Own Dear Divine Mrs. Vel-DuRay noted at the time, the City had — and has — binding contracts with SPOG and other police unions, meaning any attempt at “defund” would not only fail to remove a single public dollar from a single cop’s wallet, but getting to that status quo result would cost the City dearly in court. (As CM Sawant reminded us when she “saved the Showbox,” even if the outcome is predictable to the point of predestination, you still have to pay the lawyers who got you there.)