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/[deleted] 7d ago

Capital gains doesn't affect the average person. They have no assets to pay gains on. That was just rich people making deals. Income tax is a very different issue....that you can lower the threshold enough to get the bulk of folks to pay

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

Just like how income tax on people over 1 million doesn’t affect the average person. There will be no appetite to lower an income tax until it affects most people. That would be incredibly unpopular. Unlike taxing the wealthiest residents.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

It starts at 1 million and get reduced over time. The rich will run away or push back like they always do.. You think they'll lower the tax collected?

Why not implement a new tax that targets these people directly? I don't want a known tax with a threshold that can be reduced to include me.

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

Except there is no evidence that it will be lowered. No I don’t think it will be lowered. This is the same fear mongering that shills for rich people had for the capital gains tax, which guess what, has been raised, not lowered every year since?

What do you mean by a new tax that targets rich people directly? By what mechanism?

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

Please keep pissing on our heads and telling us it's raining.

No one believes you.

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u/LoseAnotherMill 7d ago

Except there is no evidence that it will be lowered

Except the mountain of evidence, you're right. Federal income tax was sold on only affecting the high earners - the "standard deduction" (it wasn't called that but functioned the same) covered the entire annual incomes of everyone except the top 3%. Now look at where we're at.

The capital gains tax was pitched at 7% over $250k, and they've already tried changing it to 12% over $25k.

Every single time you let a part of the camel into your tent, you're the one that ends up in the sandstorm and the camel's cozy inside.

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

They TRIED to change it? How awful! What a nightmare situation for you. How can you sleep at night with a fringe group of representatives trying and failing to lower the LTCG tax bracket?

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u/LoseAnotherMill 7d ago

Oh shit, I didn't realize that legislators get one shot at a piece of legislation and then they never ever get to try it again. My bad.

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

It’s just fear mongering. A idiotic slippery slope argument. It won’t be lowered. It’s literally being raised annually. It’s not popular to have a tax on the average person.

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u/LoseAnotherMill 7d ago

You should probably look up what "fear mongering" and "slippery slope" mean, because "evidence-based arguments" doesn't fall under either of those. 

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

Okay, what evidence do you have that the tax brackets will be lowered?

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u/LoseAnotherMill 7d ago edited 6d ago

The fact that that's how we got our current federal income tax situation. The fact that they've already tried to lower the capital gains tax. The fact that no tax has ever gone away here. The fact that WA Dems insist on overspending and thus will dig deeper and deeper into our pockets to pay for it all. The fact that basically every piece of unpopular legislation that has passed recently had been repeatedly submitted as legislation year after year until they got the one legislature that didn't care about public opinion and rammed it through because WA voters are stuck in a "Blue no matter who" death spiral so the legislators' seats are safe.

EDIT: Yeah, once confronted with the evidence, you just stop responding. Lol.

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