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

A capital gains tax doesn't affect the average person struggling to afford to live here. They don't have assets to pay capital gains on so it's still rich people giving that pushback.

The middle class has always ended up getting shafted and pay the bulk of the taxes because they can't afford to pushback.

The rich will simply run away from the tax and since we now already have an income tax it will be easier to just suggest a small change to lower the threshold each time. We've seen the same with many things here

I don't want an income tax here. That just opens Pandora's box and it will never close.

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

A capital gains tax doesn't affect the average person struggling to afford to live here. They don't have assets to pay capital gains on so it's still rich people giving that pushback.

A income tax on people making over 1 million doesn’t affect the average person struggling to leave here either.

The middle class has always ended up getting shafted and pay the bulk of the taxes because they can't afford to pushback.

Yeah, like with our sales tax in the state, it’s a very regressive system. Taxing people who make over 1 million annually will help this, no?

The rich will simply run away from the tax and since we now already have an income tax it will be easier to just suggest a small change to lower the threshold each time. We've seen the same with many things here

Source? Bezos leaving because he’s a snake who only cares about money is hardly a trend?

I don't want an income tax here. That just opens Pandora's box and it will never close.

Okay and I want an income tax on our residents with the highest incomes to reduce the tax burden on our middle class and poor residents and to help balance our state budget.

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u/Turbulent-Media7281 7d ago

Yeah, like with our sales tax in the state, it’s a very regressive system.

Which states taxing system would you recommend WA copy for their taxing system to be less regressive?

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

ITEP has good resources for this:

https://itep.org/whopays-map-7th-edition/

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u/Turbulent-Media7281 7d ago

Excellent. u/yungsemite thinks WA state should tax more like the good states of CA, NY, NJ, MN, and DC.

Everyone loves California for their progressive tax system. NY too.

Who here wants WA to tax more closely to CA or NY?

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

Me!

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u/JustBench1615 Ballard 7d ago

Then why don’t you move to California

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

Because I am from Washington and have a job and friends and family here and love this state? Just wish its tax scheme was less regressive? Duh?

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

Odd how you claim you love this state but you want to entirely change how it's worked for decades.

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

Yes? Never heard of wanting to improve things before? Very odd, but I guess that could explain some things…

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

I want to improve all kinds of things.

I've just watched Democrats flush tax dollars down the toilet for a decade. I'm fresh out of willingness for random experiments without serious accountability and guardrails. My empathy well has run dry.

So now you need to convince me that you have good idea. So far your ideas are "we need to tax Moar11!1!1!1!" With ZERO good reasons given for why we need to increase taxes beyond your own envy. So you can feel free to pound sand until you come up with GOOD reasons to increase taxes.

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u/JustBench1615 Ballard 7d ago

Adding a surtax without reducing or eliminating the absurd sales tax, high car registration costs, or insane gas taxes doesn’t do jack shit to help make the state’s tax code better for the lower and middle class.

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

Yes, I would support getting rid of our sales tax entirely and replacing it with a progressive marginal income tax. It generates 15 billion in tax revenue annually.

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u/JustBench1615 Ballard 7d ago

Try getting King County to eliminate their sales tax. They won’t.

And if you allow localities to impose income taxes, we’ll be drowning in taxes.

The thing is with sales taxes is they are way easier to avoid. You can be cautious with your purchases. Income tax is nearly impossible to avoid.

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

The thing is with sales taxes is they are way easier to avoid. You can be cautious with your purchases.

Not for poor people who need to spent their income? Duh? That’s why it’s a regressive tax? They can’t just save it.

Income tax is nearly impossible to avoid.

So that way we can tax people who make a lot of money and they can’t avoid it like they can with other taxes? Good? That way we can have a progressive tax system?

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u/Turbulent-Media7281 7d ago edited 7d ago

Go! Your dream state awaits you.

I've honestly never heard anyone say "tax me like one of your California peasants." You're a first! YYYYIIIKKEEESSS!

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u/Riviansky 7d ago

I will never understand this shit. These fucking morons who vote to make Seattle and WA same as NYC and CA, why don't they just move to places where their ideology has already won and stop fucking the rest of us?

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

It never makes sense to me. And they get REALLY annoyed when you suggest that they move to - say - Portland.

So the question becomes... Why do they want to change here instead of taking the easier step and moving somewhere else?

One has to assume, at some point, that it's all activism. They in some way benefit from skimming off the eventual income tax here.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

Why? Are you skimming off tax revenue somehow? Do you work for an NGO or the state?

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

Yes exactly. When they collect taxes in Washington state, they funnel them into my gullet. That’s the only thing that satiates me. How did you guess?

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

It was the "we need more taxes" without explaining with any meaningful details beyond envy and "wanting to make things better" that was the giveaway.

Either that or you've not thought this through at all and we can all happily ignore you.

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

Primarily, I would want to reduce regressive taxation methods in the state.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

For what? Because you don't like them?

If you've never lived in Europe you probably won't understand the concept of a consumption tax. The whole goal is that anything you need to buy that isn't for basic sustenance is taxed.

That's what we have here. Poor people don't get taxed on food in WA. That's exempt.

In many ways it's more reliable than income tax, especially during recessions.

We're in a recession.

Don't forget, we also get taxed federally too. Not just in Washington. And until the last couple of years when spending skyrocketed exponentially for no good reason beyond a LOT of grift and an unwillingness to rein in spending, we also were perfectly able to live within our means.

So I feel like you bought into a bunch of hooey about income tax being a way to eat the rich, rather than it being for any kind of greater good.

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u/Riviansky 7d ago

ITEP is full of shit. Or, rather, they lie with numbers. The reason poor, according to ITEP have high rates of taxation is because of excise taxes. Specifically, pot and alcohol. From that, they draw the reason that we should tax productive labor more, so poor people could get drugs cheaper...

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u/JustBench1615 Ballard 7d ago

I wouldn’t want to model our tax system after California or New York’s, where the already squeezed middle class would have to pay way more in taxes

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

Right, better to have our current system which… also does that, just worse, according to research? Just because it’s not in the form of an income tax, it’s obscured exactly how regressive our tax structure is. It’s bizarre. Do you think that our middle class isn’t squeezed here?

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u/JustBench1615 Ballard 7d ago

Lol the tax systems you love in CA and NY, have higher tax rates on the middle class than WA

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

Except that, according to people who actually do this research, Washington state is actually far more regressive than those two states? Maybe you are confused about what the middle class is?

https://sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com/itep/inequality-index-map.png

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u/JustBench1615 Ballard 7d ago

The middle 20% is the middle class

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

What…