GM to lay off 1,300 workers across 2 Michigan plants as vehicle production ends
USA TodayJUL 2023
General Motors Sues San Francisco for $121M in Back Taxes
Image copyright: Smith Collection/Gado/Archive Photos via Getty Images
The Spin
Narrative A
San Francisco taxed GM's more than $3B in global revenue even though the corporation has no dealerships or factories and made less than a million dollars in San Francisco retail sales in 2022. Furthermore, Cruise has taken all of its cars off the road, which shows that even its San Francisco-based subsidiary has not been a money-maker for the corporation. It makes no sense for a Detroit-based company with little presence in California to make up 2% of a California city's yearly tax revenue — this was a bad-faith assessment by the city.
Narrative B
Car manufacturers do a lot of good for the country and have received much-deserved praise for their innovation and job creation. However, companies like GM and Ford have over the last 20 or so years benefited from bailouts when business is bad and tax loopholes when profits are booming. Whether it be at the local, state, or federal level, it's time to question this newfound greed and public-private corruption within America's historically beloved auto industry — it's fair and reasonable to expect proportional taxation.