I love the Lucas Campus in the Presidio. It is one of the nicest places to walk around. Beautiful landscaping, statues honoring Bernard Maybeck, Philo Farnsworth and Yoda. A great viewing spot for the Palace of Fine Arts.

So yeah, I can't go into the buildings but I can't go into 95% of the buildings in the Presidio.

I see that Tim is seething because San Francisco isn't getting tax revenues from land that it doesn't own but that's his problem. The place is great and a benefit to SF.

I know what's coming...if there was a fire there then the SFPD would have to help put it out. Got it. The campus is a great deal for San Francisco anyway.

Even though Lucas is on federal property, I believe the city (county) is able to assess a property tax on the buildings and improvements as a "possessory interest."

In the words of a Santa Clara law professor:

"Thus, publicly held federal or state lands often generate these non-fee possessory interests which California has taxed since 1859."

http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2229&conte...

http://law.onecle.com/california/taxation/107.html

The SFBG has done a lot of long-term damage to progressive thinking with its tax reporting and tax positions. A city income tax? Really? Any half-decent bookkeeper can prepare income tax returns so that even the most profitable are able to report LOSSES in SF (or CA or the US) while boatloads of profits are allocated to Cayman and Hong Kong and Singapore, which are low or no-tax jurisdictions. It's so simple it's laugable when anyone supports a business income tax or profits tax in lieu of far, far superior tax systems.

Even if the government hired thousands of tax auditors to "reallocate" income and expenses so that profits were more fairly reported in SF (or CA or the US), they would never win many cases when pitted against the much better trained and savvy tax lawyers, accountants, and economists. And the litigation costs would run into the billions just trying to win a handful of cases against an army of much better trained and prepared tax lawyers.

And bond taxes the Guardian also supports like Prop B, where bond interest is mostly paid to the 1%ers, often tax-free? Yeah, those are great taxes too. NOT.

I'll make it simple for you since tax policy seems to be one of those subjects The Bay Guardian ALWAYS gets wrong. Only support gross receipt taxes with graduated tax rates (exempting small businesses and allowing tax credits for any "tax on tax" issues), especially supporting high graduated taxes on gross rents less direct costs for maintenance and repair expenses.

These are two of the fairest taxes, the easist to audit, virtually impossible for taxpayers to avoid (even with their million-dollar paid tax advisors), and bring in the most revenue with the least distortion to the underlying economy since the tax base is so broad and the tax rates are so low compared to "income tax rates." Thus, when companies ship jobs overseas but continue to sell their products and services into the lucrative US, CA and SF markets, they pay tax on their sales here. And US companies don't pay tax on shipments outside the US, thus helping to bring jobs and employment back to the US.

The point is that both LucasFilm, and now Disney, are taking advantage of a loophole. They get the convenience of being in San Francisco (albeit on federal land) and don't have to pay any property taxes to the city. Unless all of their employees also live, eat and commute exclusively within Presidio boundaries, they are still using San Francisco infrastructure (roads, MUNI, schools, police and fire) in their daily lives.

The Presidio is beautiful but it's not an isolated bubble. Apparently, it's only isolated from taxes.

>"Unless all of their employees also live, eat and commute exclusively within Presidio boundaries"

Well if they live in San Francisco then the city is getting real estate taxes on the living quarters that they pay for. Not sure how their eating is a drain on the city economy. In fact, the local groceries and restaurants might actually appreciate it.

Not sure what the problem is. At some point Tim and the other Progressives will have to grow up and realize that they can't tax every penny that successful people have.

Grew up in the south bay, we have a nice big campus that has many companies, they don't pay any property taxes. Presidio and Moffett Field are federal land.

Here are the details:

http://www.sf-fire.org/index.aspx?page=1061

So Lucas pays the Presidio and the Presidio pays San Francisco.

Not good enough for Tim. If successful people have money, Tim wants to tax it. The fact that they don't even operate in San Francisco is irrelevant.

We should tax the successful until they learn to shut the fuck up about being taxed.

I'm not sure I'm correct about this, but I thought George Lucas was keeping the real estate side of his holdings. That what he was selling was the company and the business dealings, but keeping the real estate side of the deal. The article that makes me think this is listed below with the quote.

So basically George Lucas would continue to get the sweet tax break (if any) and charging rent to Disney-- I think. Again I'm not sure I'm right about that but that seems to be the implication of the quote.

http://www.mercurynews.com/movies-dvd/ci_21891588/disney-lucasfilm-buyin...

"A spokeswoman for Lucas said he will retain ownership of the current Lucasfilm campuses, including the sites in San Francisco and Marin, with the understanding that Lucasfilm will continue operating on the sites."

Yes you. Especially the person who wrote this article. THE ARTICLE YOU LINK TO SAYS $60 OVER THE NEXT 12 YEARS!!!! And that was in 1999! About the only thing they might not pay is a little over a million dollars a year. Out of a 3 billion dollar budget. Tim, your are either an idiot for misinterpreting the article you linked to, or an assh0le for willfully trying to mislead people.