The Washington State Wealth Tax Seems Dead

It happened unceremoniously, behind closed doors, and then got buried in a shallow grave in a news lede. This morning, the Seattle Times broke the news that the wealth tax proposals at the center of both the House and the Senate’s plan to fill the $16 billion budget deficit have been “nixed.” And the passive voice leaves the blame ambiguous. Did Governor Bob Ferguson kill it when he threatened a veto? Did the ultra wealthy’s historically intense lobbying effort kill it? Did the cowardice of Democratic lawmakers, who at one point schemed to pass the measure behind Ferguson’s back, kill it? Maybe they all share a bit of the responsibility.

Now, the Democrats will pursue a tweak to the tried and true capital gains tax that will raise $680 million, a B&O surcharge on big business that would raise $6.38 billion, a new 3% cap on state and local property taxes that would raise $818 million, and a sales tax on nicotine and some services that would raise $4 billion. In a slide deck listing their tax proposals and how much each would raise, lawmakers added a slide for the wealth tax at the end, identifying the bill number and estimating the revenue at $0.

In all these, proposals would raise $11.8 billion of the $16 billion deficit, leaving $4 billion worth of cuts or a wealth tax sized hole in the budget. But nothing's set in stone. You can still call, email, otherwise bully your state lawmakers to try to resuscitate the wealth tax.

This is a developing story!