Last month, it was reported that the city of Cupertino was considering a new so-called “head tax” that would charge companies based on how many employees they had in the city. In a vote last night, however, Cupertino city council members voted to delay the possibility of such a tax until next year…
As reported by The Mercury News, the Cupertino city council faced opposition from several citizens who called the tax “too vague and unfair to businesses.” With that in mind, the council voted 3-1 to delay the proposal, which otherwise would have appeared on the ballot in November of this year.
The one councilman who dissented was Barry Chang, who argued that waiting until next year would only worsen Cupertino’s traffic and housing problems, two areas that would see some of the funds raised by a head tax:
“I think not only here, the big corporations in the entire nation, the corporations need to take up their fair share to help solve the problems we are facing now,” Chang said. “So that’s why this issue needs to be done and needs to be done now instead of waiting.”
The future of Cupertino’s head tax is now somewhat unclear, but the council will reconvene on July 3rd to further discuss the tax’s fate:
The council would have had to agree by July 3 on the details of the proposed tax in order to get it on the November ballot. Instead, the council now plans to discuss on July 3 whether it should propose a general or special tax on businesses to put before voters in 2019.
Cupertino’s head tax proposal is similar to that of Mountain View and Seattle. In Seattle, for instance, the city is weighing a tax that would charge businesses that make at least $20 million a year $275 per employee. Apple is by far the largest employer in Cupertino, and thus would be hit hardest by such a tax.
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