General Motors’ bombshell legal demand in December for more than $121 million in refunds from San Francisco for taxes, interest and penalties is not an isolated case.
This year, The City has already approved a $3.9 million refund of business taxes to Deloitte. Last year, it was almost $4.2 million to AppLovin and $13.3 million to WeWork. In 2022, it paid nearly $9.2 million to Gap. And in 2020 and 2021, The City shelled out $9.6 million to settle lawsuits filed by the payments company Square, now known as Block.
The City identifies four voter-approved taxes — the gross-receipts tax, the homelessness gross-receipts tax, the overpaid-executive gross-receipts tax and the commercial-rents gross-receipts tax — as making up its business taxes. Ex // Top Stories San Francisco is earning high ratings for being desirable — but don’t tell its critics The City is earning high ratings for being healthy, happy and desirable — but don’t tell its critics
In GM’s case, the Detroit automaker contends it has almost no footprint in San Francisco and that The City inappropriately combined the operations of Cruise, its self-driving-automobile unit — which had minimal revenue — with GM’s global operations. It seeks refunds for the years 2016 to 2022.