Disclaimer: I support taxation and public investment in our infrastructure and social services. However in reading this subreddit time and again I find encounters highly dismissive comments towards business owners and/or a total lack of understanding of how difficult the climate can be. My hope is this post will give perspective and maybe start to pivot their energy towards asking more out of our politicians, policy makers, and public agencies.
As someone that recently closed up my business I’ve been struggling a lot with giving up on my dream and for failing my former staff who are now unemployed. The business itself was small with just a few employees and while it was far from a smashing success (certainly no concerns about millionaires tax), it was far from bankruptcy.
Reflecting on why I ultimately made the decision it comes down to one thing: The business climate in Seattle (and other jurisdictions) is extremely complicated, fractured and unpredictable. Seattle plays its part in a constantly evolving city, county, RTA, Port, district, state and federal tax and compliance code that have no cohesion.
The endless amount of paperwork and volatility in business risk that results always leads to more taxes but what I found most debilitating was the reality that all of these creative policies are each growing independently without any cohesion between agencies or understanding/care of the combined impact on businesses.
A few examples that have kept me up nights with bitterness.
– wsst on professional services: Many customers hadn’t budgeted for this properly because it was not a public vote and for many it came out of nowhere. I had to lower rates with customers to offset in order to keep them for the same exact service while all my operating costs are rising. Still some customers cut all vendors because it was such a massive hit.
– License tabs: We purchased 3 electric cars at a time that the region was very supportive of EV adopters and voters approved the $30 car tab fee. The changes to license tab renewals came after the fact including exorbitant RTA excise tax, the EV Surcharge, and Transportation Electification fee it cost $800 to renew tab per car.
– insurance/security enforcement: like many, business had dealt with vandalism/damage. Police report resulted in zero follow through even with clear evidence. Business insurance on physical assets have tripled in recent years ( I can only assume due to the lack of enforcement).
I’ve sold the business assets I could and now am taking on some contracting work for a large corporation that has a finance, hr and compliance department ready to assume this risk and to process all these changes. While I’ll actually make about the same annually, it will be with a beaten down morale and a much more skeptical view on our system.
submitted by /u/-millenial-boomer-
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