June 23, 2026
Tax and the City: Friend Edition
Audit finds San Francisco tax official steered $10M contract to friend
Audit says SF tax boss tilted a $10M deal to friends — and commenters say everyone saw it coming
TLDR: An audit says a San Francisco tax official improperly helped friends’ company chase a $10 million city deal and may have crossed ethical lines involving a relative. Commenters were angry but unsurprised, with many saying this looks like the same old insider favoritism seen across government.
San Francisco just got a very messy ethics reality show: an audit says former chief assistant treasurer Tajel Shah helped steer a $10 million city contract toward Mechanical Orchard, a company tied to her friends, while the deal involved systems handling $2.6 billion in business taxes. Auditors said the bidding process was bent in the company’s favor, key information wasn’t shared equally, and Shah even asked a vendor about helping her niece get a job. Shah denied wrongdoing, but the report says the whole thing created the appearance of “pay-to-play.”
And the commenters? Oh, they came in with the weary, cynical energy of people who feel like they’ve seen this movie before. One of the loudest reactions was basically: this is corruption, yes, but also… welcome to government. Several commenters shrugged that big-budget cities and even Washington run on this kind of insider favoritism, with one bluntly saying, “This is very common.” Another argued the scandal feels almost tiny compared with federal-level chaos, calling it “not even a rounding error.”
But there was also classic internet detective work. One commenter dropped a link to the audit report and pointed readers to page 27, exhibit 4 like they were unveiling the season finale clue board. And for comic relief, someone deadpanned “Pool contract?” — a wink to past government sweetheart-deal scandals. The mood was half outrage, half exhausted laughter: less “I can’t believe this happened” and more “of course it did.”
Key Points
- •A San Francisco controller’s audit found that former chief assistant treasurer Tajel Shah improperly influenced a $10 million contract process tied to the city’s business tax system.
- •Auditors said the solicitation process was compromised by Shah’s undisclosed friendship with Roque Versace, then chief revenue officer at Mechanical Orchard.
- •The report said Mechanical Orchard received unfair advantages, including unequal access to information and a scope of work that closely mirrored its own recommendations.
- •Auditors also cited emails and hiring activity involving Shah’s niece and Ratio PBC as evidence of conduct inconsistent with public procurement standards.
- •Treasurer Jose Cisneros accepted the audit findings, and the treasurer and tax collector’s office said it has reorganized leadership to reduce the risk of future abuses.