‘Tech tax’: San Francisco mulls plan for taxing the rich to house the poor

A payroll levy on the city's largest tech companies - such as Google, Twitter, Uber and Airbnb - aims to tackle inequality, but some have savaged the proposal

San Francisco's long, complex and often fraught relationship with the tech industry has come to a head with a proposal to levy a "tech tax" on the companies that have fueled the city's transformation into a place that is increasingly uninhabitable for people on low or medium incomes.

Under the plan, large tech employers in the city, potentially including Google, Twitter, Uber, Airbnb and Salesforce, would be required to pay a 1.5% payroll tax. The estimated $120m in annual revenue would be used to fund affordable housing and services for the city's large homeless population.