Seattle just passed an “Amazon Tax,” raiding their biggest businesses to pay for affordable housing.

Home to Amazon, Starbucks, and others, Seattle’s new tax may toe the line of driving away jobs and prosperity.

But Council leaders believe the move is necessary to address their growing homelessness problem.

CNN Money Reports:

A controversial proposal that will tax big businesses in Seattle to alleviate the city’s homelessness and affordable housing problems was approved Monday.
The Seattle City Council passed it unanimously in a 9-0 vote.
…
The newly passed ordinance, which takes effect in January 2019, will impose a “head tax” on the city’s highest grossing businesses. The tax will amount to $275 a year per full-time employee in Seattle. It would raise roughly $47 million a year on average and expire after five years, according to the Council.

That’s down from the $75 million a year the original proposal would have generated by imposing a $540 head tax per employee for the next few years, after which it would be converted to a 0.7% payroll tax.

The only question is: how much more can Seattle tax its businesses before they pick up and leave?

Starbucks blasted the decision saying “This City continues to spend without reforming and fail without accountability.”