If you’re earning over $1,000,000 per year, yes.
SF median income is below 100K.
If you’re earning over $1,000,000 per year, yes.
SF median income is below 100K.
The 1.5% tax they're talking was the 1.5% payroll tax that SF had in place until 2012 [1]. Payroll tax isn't quite the same as an income tax because the onus isn't on the employee to figure it out like state and federal, but it still did cost most businesses in SF an extra 1.5% on every employee's salary to be there.
Prop E shifted most of this to a gross receipts tax instead (although there's still a 0.38% payroll expense tax in place [2]). Again, the numbers your parent is talking about are out of date, but the spirit of it is right in that it does just fundamentally cost a company quite a bit more to have an employee in SF.
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[1] https://sftreasurer.org/business/taxes-fees/gross-receipts-t...
[2] https://sftreasurer.org/business/taxes-fees/payroll-expense-...