Seattle Head Tax

The Seattle city council passed a new tax law that could affect your business.

The city council voted to establish an annual tax of $275 per full time employee on the City’s largest businesses, those with revenues of more than $20 million  (about 3% of all businesses).

The intent of the tax is to fund homeless programs.

Only a handful of cities imposes such a tax on businesses in.

The tax could have consequences on job creation in Seattle such as:

-force employers to adopt automation quicker.

-reducing their workforce.

The tax would make it costlier to employ new or low-skill employees, potentially nudging employers further in the direction of automation, or into hiring a smaller number of higher-compensated employees to do work that might otherwise have been distributed among lower-skill (and lower-wage) employees.

Sources:
Seattle City Ordnance CB 119244