NOVEMBER 2024 VOTER GUIDE
NO ON PROP L
RIDESHARE TAX TO FUND TRANSIT
ENDORSE-O-METER SAYS: NO
San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is heading for a fiscal cliff in the next several years, and some transit advocates are trying to fill Muni’s budget gap with a new tax on rideshare operators like Lyft, Uber, and Waymo. Taxing rideshare to fund transit sounds like an elegant solution, but this measure could derail more robust funding solutions that are already in the works. We’re voting no on Proposition L because it’s an unnecessary, duplicative tax measure that won’t meaningfully fund public transit operations.
The Context
San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is facing a major budget deficit, as ridership hasn’t fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels. The city can’t bail SFMTA out, as it’s facing its own budget woes, and federal relief money is set to run out next year. To fill Muni’s funding gap and stave off service cuts, some well-meaning, slightly misguided transit advocates have stepped in with a ballot initiative to tax rideshare companies like Lyft, Uber, and Waymo.
Look, we love public transit, and Muni is a vital service for San Francisco. But elected officials are already working on proposals that will fund SFMTA more thoroughly and solve the agency’s structural deficits. Plus, San Francisco voters passed a similar rideshare tax in 2019. That brought $17 million for SFMTA’s coffers in the most recent fiscal year—a nice bump, but hardly enough to cover the $214 million budget deficit SFMTA faces in 2026. This measure does little beyond adding another gross receipts tax to San Francisco’s overly-complicated tax structure.
The Money
This measure would tax companies on a sliding scale that depends on how much money the company earns in San Francisco. The tax starts at 1 percent on taxable gross receipts between $500,000.01 and $1 million and goes up to 4.5 percent on taxable gross receipts over $25 million.
Additional Details
A broad coalition of businesses, elected officials, and labor representatives just came together to try and reform San Francisco’s business tax structure, which has been skewed by years of tax initiatives like this one. Creating another gross receipts tax measure, no matter how narrowly targeted, is not something voters should be deciding.
Support & Opposition
This measure was authored by transit activists Chris Arvin, Lian Chang, and Katherine Siegal, and has the support of elected officials like State Senator Scott Wiener and District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston, as well as organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America, San Francisco and the Sierra Club. The Committee to Support the Community Transit Act is the campaign committee supporting this measure.
There’s no organized opposition to this measure yet, but Board of Supervisors Aaron Peskin, who authored the 2019 tax on ride-hailing companies, raised concerns that the independent activists’ effort may overlap with proposals that are already in process.
Other Organizations That Share Our Endorsement: The United Democratic Club.
Paid for by TogetherSF Action. Not authorized by any candidate or a committee controlled by a candidate. Financial disclosures are available at sfethics.org.