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posted by martyb on Saturday May 11 2019, @05:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the Mike-Judge-never-imagined dept.

From SFChronicle

A pending deal to sell almost half of Park Tower, one of San Francisco's tallest office buildings, could lead to $539 million changing hands and set the new skyscraper's value at more than a billion dollars — an almost unprecedented sum.

But the city will get nothing from the deal, at least in the form of the transfer taxes it collects on most sales of real estate.

That's because owners MetLife, John Buck Co. and Golub plan to sell a 49% stake in the property at 250 Howard St., where the office space is fully leased to Facebook.

Since less than half of the property is trading, the deal won't count as a change in ownership, exempting it from San Francisco's 3% transfer tax on deals over $25 million, said Jeffry Bernstein, a partner and tax expert at law firm Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass. If it was subject to the tax, the city would receive more than $16 million.

[...] San Francisco voters increased the transfer tax on property sales over $5 million in a 2016 ballot measure, in an effort to make City College free for residents. While voters can change transfer tax rates, Bernstein said any efforts to make sales of partial ownership stakes subject to the tax would "have to come out of Sacramento."


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @02:30PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @02:30PM (#842309)

    That's what sounds logical, but this is the rich 1% you're talking about. There are probably exemptions from the transfer tax if they sell another 2% stake to some other party... which they will probably do shortly... then sell the remaining 49% to Facebook... then the other 2% gets sold to Facebook giving them 100% ownership with no tax due.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @06:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11 2019, @06:04PM (#842399)

    Crooks getting outdone by crooks. I love it. I wish I could pay no taxes as well.