Should Washington preserve, repeal, or more narrowly revise its new tax on annual individual income above $1 million? | Public Comment

Washington Tax Policy

Washington voters will decide Initiative 26-645 on November 3. The measure would repeal the state's newly enacted 9.9% tax on annual individual income above $1 million and would go further by prohibiting state and local governments from imposing taxes on individual income, receipt of individual income, or taxes measured by individual income. The tax is scheduled to begin in 2028 if it remains in law. The initiative therefore asks voters both about the current high-income tax and about whether Washington should restrict future use of individual-income-based taxation more generally. This vote is broader than whether one tax rate is too high or too low. It also decides how much freedom future state and local governments should have to use income as a tax base. Voters should weigh both the immediate tax and the long-term restriction.

Should Washington preserve, repeal, or more narrowly revise its new tax on annual individual income above $1 million?

Overall results

1

59% support · excluded by 11%

4

A tax confined to income above a very high threshold can raise revenue while leaving the overwhelming majority of households outside the tax base.

2

Schools, healthcare and other services have long-term costs. Removing a newly enacted revenue source means those commitments must be financed another way or reduced.

2

51% support · excluded by 8%

5

The government should fund priorities within tax bases Washington already uses rather than opening a new category of individual taxation.

4

A broad prohibition gives households and businesses predictable limits on how government can expand taxation later instead of debating a new income-tax structure every few years.

3

49% support · excluded by 3%

6

The choice need not be all or nothing. Thresholds, rates and deductions can be adjusted if the state's revenue goal is legitimate but the enacted design creates excessive economic or volatility concerns.

4

37% support · excluded by 11%

5

Voters may reject this particular tax without binding future voters and legislatures to a broad prohibition that could have consequences beyond today's debate.

About the author

Anonymous

#enGVahZxSs