Washington State Capitol by Martin Kraft is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Washington voters are on track to decide the fate of Democrats’ new 9.9% income tax after opponents led by Let’s Go Washington submitted more than 500,000 signatures to qualify Initiative 645 for the November ballot.
The initiative would repeal the state’s new 9.9 percent income tax on adjusted gross income over $1 million for Washington households. The campaign turned in 511,408 signatures, far exceeding the roughly 309,000 valid signatures required to qualify. Momentum against the brand-new income tax is surging among Washington voters, who are well aware of the tendency for politicians to increase and expand new taxes whenever they are adopted.
Democrats initially tried to prevent voters from having a direct say on the new tax by adding an emergency clause to the legislation, blocking a referendum on the legislation itself and forcing opponents to pursue the more difficult initiative process instead.
Now, supporters of the tax are warning that repealing it would blow a hole in the state budget. But Democrats created this situation themselves.
Initiative 645 repeals only the income tax while leaving the smaller tax cut components of the bill in place, such as the expansion of the Working Families Tax Credit for hundreds of thousands of Washington households. After trying to shield the tax from a referendum, Democrats may end up losing the income tax while keeping the tax cuts. Ultimately, taxpayers and the state economy will benefit most from a repeal of the income tax – which is certain to drive people and dollars out of the state and expand to more taxpayers in the coming years – and keeping the tax cuts in place while reducing spending, which has doubled in the last ten years.
Source: https://www.budgetbreakdown.org/
Meanwhile, Washington voters have consistently rejected statewide income taxes. Since 1934, voters have defeated income tax proposals ten separate times, including Initiative 1098 in 2010 by a nearly two-to-one margin.
The income tax also faces legal challenges. Plaintiffs argue the law violates longstanding Washington Supreme Court precedent holding that income is property subject to constitutional limits on taxation.
If state officials certify enough signatures, Washington voters will once again have the opportunity to reject a state income tax this November.
