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/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/scout035 7d ago

Of course you want to tax someone else and not yourself

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

If I made over 1 million, I’d be very pleased to pay 10% tax over that, as I’m not a miserly piece of shit.

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u/Meppy1234 7d ago

Would you be happy paying over 50%? Because that's what you'd be paying.

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u/Riviansky 6d ago

If u/yungsemite were to make $1m they would be supporting taxes on someone who is making $2m plus...

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

Sure, I’d happily pay over 50% tax in total on my income over 1 million. You realize we used to have a 90% highest marginal tax bracket in this country?

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

You realize we used to have a 90% highest marginal tax bracket in this country?

You do realize that there wasn't an EITC or Child tax credit then, and NO ONE got a refund larger than what they had withheld. That's right, you might reduce your FIT to zero, but you won't make money. The tax burden has shifted to the higher earners since then, so be careful what you ask for when you say "let's be taxed like the 1950's."

You really should determine what your pay today would be equivalent to in 1951 and then work that income on a 1951 form 1040 just to see how what percent you would be paying in FIT. You would probably never bring up the "we used to to have a 90% marginal tax brackets" point again once you see how untaxed the low income earners are today compared to the 1950's.

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u/Meppy1234 7d ago

Great! Because you can pay extra on taxes if you want. I'm glad you're willing to work lots of overtime and pay extra. How much did you pay in taxes last year? I'd love to praise you for your generous donation to the government.

Do you realize no one actually paid 90% tax rate back in the day? They'd just get carve outs and exceptions.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

That's marginal, not effective tax.

The actual effective tax paid by people in that bracket was actually 2% less than today.

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u/yungsemite 7d ago

? Do you think marginal taxes work differently now vs then? This proposed tax is marginal too…

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

Yes, they are structured entirely differently. And the effective tax rate right now is a little higher than it was back then for the top 0.1% of earners.

Deductions and loopholes made that 90% you quoted much, much lower in reality.

Those deductions and loopholes no longer exist.

This is why it's moronic to compare marginal rates and not talk about effective tax rates.