Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff Celebrates ‘Proposition C’ Victory over Silicon Valley Opponents

US tech giants split over corporate tax to help homeless
AFP
Charlie Nash

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff celebrated the victory of the controversial “Proposition C” homelessness tax in San Francisco, which tore Silicon Valley leaders apart leading up to election day.

Proposition C will tax big businesses in order to provide more money to homeless shelters and initiatives in San Francisco.

“Proposition C will increase gross receipts taxes for companies with more than $50 million in annual revenue by an average of 0.5 percent, generating up to $300 million a year to combat the city’s homelessness crisis through initiatives like new beds in shelters and increased mental health services,” reported CNBC, which added that the tax “had both vocal proponents and vehement detractors in the tech industry.”

Benioff, a vocal supporter of Proposition C, donated $7 million with his company Salesforce.com in support of the tax, and celebrated the victory on Twitter this week.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, and Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham, however, all opposed Proposition C, claiming that the tax would be ineffective in its goal to combat homelessness.

The “No on Prop C” campaign also received donations from Lyft, Visa, and venture capitalist Michael Moritz.

“If homelessness was just a question of money, this issue would already be solved,” declared Collison in a statement. “While cities report inconsistently, San Francisco currently spends around $430 per city resident per year on services and programs for the homeless, compared to $260 in New York and $110 in Los Angeles. Yet the problem in our city is worse, and despite increases in spending, has continued to worsen.”

“Homelessness is the product of a complex web of causes, and solutions require careful interventions. Like many others, we do not believe that Prop C — which would bring San Francisco’s annual expenditure to $770 per person per year — will effectively solve this problem,” he continued. “While well-intentioned, it is San Francisco’s largest-ever tax increase, and comes with no systemic changes or effective accountability. Anyone who claims that Prop C is a matter of being ‘for the homeless or against them’ is selling a facile falsehood.”

The Silicon Valley split led to a heated, public battle between Benioff, Dorsey, and Collison last month.

Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington, or like his page at Facebook.

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