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"Twitter's headquarters will officially remain in San Francisco after it secured a deal with the city over a tax break.\n\"Twitter is staying in San Francisco and has signed a lease to move our headquarters to Market Square, a historic building in San Francisco\u2019s Central Market neighborhood that is being managed by our new partner and landlord, Shorenstein Properties,\" Twitter's head of communication Sean Garrett announced on the company's blog.\nFor the last few months, the City of San Francisco and Twitter have been at odds over the city's 1.5% payroll tax.  San Francisco is the only city that has a business tax based on how much the company pays workers (including stock options), rather than simply taxing the company's income. The result is that Twitter would have to pay millions more to the city \u2014 a charge it could avoid by moving a few miles south or east.\nEarlier this month though, the city voted to create a tax break zone in the central market district of San Francisco, an underdeveloped part of the city's main drag with high vacancy rates. The city is hoping that Twitter (and other tech companies such as Zynga) can spark development and attract new tenants to the area.\nWith the prospect of losing one of its most prominent companies, San Francisco did everything it could to keep the growing social media company within its city limits. The deal also brings fresh money and blood to an area of the city that desperately needs it. \nTwitter doesn't have a timeline for its relocation from its SOMA offices, but the company does expect to be fully relocated by mid-2012.\nImage courtesy of Flickr, mischiru"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2011/04/22/its-official-twitter-is-staying-in-san-francisco/>