This assumes that the company would be based on the city regardless. It's very common to see these assumptions in news articles about tax breaks, and it never makes sense.
Yes it's a thing people do. We tax oil and cigarettes and people understand it makes people not want to buy oil and cigarettes anymore. Tax something good like working in SF, people don't seem to understand it has the same effect.
I dealt with the Twitter office move stuff and there was a real honest to goodness push to get is to love to an office in South San Francisco so we could avaint the payroll tax and have parking. Had it not been for the tax break I suspect they would have left SF completely.
This assumes that the company would be based on the city regardless. It's very common to see these assumptions in news articles about tax breaks, and it never makes sense.