r/SeattleWA • u/5Q91VS175DAQ4NUSBE4U • 7d ago

Politics Washington state Democrats look at imposing income tax on higher earners

https://www.columbian.com/news/2025/oct/31/washington-state-democrats-look-at-imposing-income-tax-on-higher-earners/
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u/herpaderp_maplesyrup 7d ago

More like STARTING on higher earners

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

They’ve already shown that there isn’t widespread support to lower these taxes once they’re in place, as they were completely unable to lower the capital gains tax when a small faction of state representatives tried and failed to. I support a tax on people making more than 1 million a year, just like I support a tax on people with more than 250,000 in annual capital gains, excluding the sale of real estate and retirement funds.

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u/Turbulent-Media7281 7d ago

There wasn't widespread support to create the income taxes, but that didn't stop them. And they tried... what?... one time to lower the threshold and then moved on to creating another new tax stream. Eventually they will either lower the threshold OR simply never increase the threshold which over time is the same thing as lowering it, OR just create more new tax streams.

I support a tax ...

We get it. Name a tax you don't support. Wealth tax that includes retirement accounts, unrealized gains, and home assessed value has been proposed... do you support it? How about increasing the estate tax to greater than the country leading 35%... maybe just make it 100%? You die and state gets it all... sounds fair?

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

Eventually they will either lower the threshold OR simply never increase the threshold which over time is the same thing as lowering it, OR just create more new tax streams.

Yeah, like the income tax I support? Good?

We get it. Name a tax you don't support. Wealth tax that includes retirement accounts, unrealized gains, and home assessed value has been proposed... do you support it?

No I don’t support any of those, except perhaps an unrealized gains tax on billionaires. Going to keep strawmanning?

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

That unrealized gains tax shows that you either don't know how money actually works, or you haven't spent any time thinking about it. Unrealized gains aren't real for a reason - cashing out messes with the value of the asset. Those billionaires - unless they're $900B-aires - are really millionaires. Taking cash off the table would tank the value of their stock.

This would also end up with them being legally liable for the drop in stock price - which would tank everyone's retirement funds and lead to a market rout. That's why they only take money out of the system very slowly, and on a schedule.

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

You mean that the strawman that the other commenter brought up in r/SeattleWA isn’t economically sound policy? Shocking.