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WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate

seattletimes.com

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Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate

#101

Post by senordevnyc »

SecretDreams wrote: post #20
garbawarb wrote: post #6

When I was a new grad moving to the US and deciding where to live and work, the biggest draw of Seattle was its lack of income tax. Of course this particular $1 million threshold wouldn't apply to me until I'm very late in my career, or have a lucky year, or get married to a high-income person (the $1 million threshold applies to married couples, not just individuals) but Seattle loses a lot of its appeal if it's not…

> The tax would apply only on the amount of income above the $1 million threshold, so a person making $1.5 million, for example, would be taxed on the final $500,000. It would apply to an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 households in the state, with collections beginning in 2029 on the previous year’s income. It's a sliding scale tax. Someone making a million will barely feel it. Someone making 50 million will feel it a l…

The word you’re looking for is “subjectively”, or “in my opinion”.

Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate

#102

Post by [deleted] »

SecretDreams wrote: post #50
rayiner wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Objectively, anyone making $50 million should feel it a lot and be taxed heavily. Nobody is making $50 million under their own power You’ve got it backwards. The people making $50,000 are the ones who are dependent on someone else to provide all the infrastructure for their job.

Ah yes, all the 50k makers are dependent on the very altruistic nature of the 50mil earners who all got there under their own power and without any systematic abuse, grifting, or generational wealth to get them going. Won't anyone think of these poor folks? They'll now have 49x0.099 mil less yearly income to charitably pay their indebted employees bonuses.

[deleted]

Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate

#103

Post by pc86 »

LarsAlereon wrote: post #90
pc86 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone except the people uncritically repeating this political talking point agrees that a 90% marginal rate is very far on the right side of the Laffner curve.

The point of a 90% marginal rate isn't to increase tax revenue, it's to discourage high incomes that are economically and socially harmful. If you don't believe that's a problem then policies to address it won't seem logical.

Is someone earning $1.1M more economically or socially harmful than someone earning $980,000?

Even if it is, and even if your point is true, that's not what the GP said. They said taxing rich people a higher percentage than poor people is "more efficient" (whatever that means in this context) and a "[more] fair system," and immediately followed it up with the 90% anachronism.

Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate

#104

Post by senordevnyc »

collabs wrote: post #100
qup wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say they get plenty of money already. The amount of fraud and grift is incredible anytime tax money is being spent. Defense contractors, road works, entitlement fraud, politicians' unexplainable wealth, college tuition, learing centers, and the list goes on. Manage the money properly.

The time to talk about these things is when we spend them, not when we need to pay for them though. Logically speaking, the solution is clear going forward: 1. Higher taxes 2. Reduced government spending However, we are not willing to have these difficult conversations and are focused on appeasing people. Also, lets put things in context -- here is a summary from Claude. Over the last decade, federal income taxes wen…

Disagree. Why trust someone with more money when they haven’t proven they can avoid squandering what they have?

Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate

#105

Post by lostmsu »

OnionBlender wrote: post #91
lostmsu wrote: post #53

WA has been raising taxes for some time, but the problem I care about the most - the prevalence of drugs in high schools - is getting worse. I voted with my $ and out of WA.

To where?

We settled on Canada for their decent PISA scores. Singapore would have been the top choice, but it has very high immigration barriers.

Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate

#106

Post by pc86 »

reliabilityguy wrote: post #35
hectdev wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Texas. People move here and are flabbergasted by our property taxes.

NJ, in areas with good schools, has higher property taxes.

And I'm sure we can find places with higher property taxes than those New Jersey examples.

Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate

#107

Post by senordevnyc »

bettercallsalad wrote: post #34

As someone who lives in WA, I despise how bad any state government run program here is. Literally it took me 3 months to get a SSN and I couldn’t get hold of anyone. Also on top of this tax, they have this care tax which also taxes 1% of your income for “long term care”. I would love to pay my taxes if I had seen reasonable outcome. So far all I see is a corrupt state government with no accountability and transparenc…

Not to detract from your point, but aren’t SSNs handled by the federal government?

Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate

#108

Post by cma256 »

ambicapter wrote: post #86
cma256 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both California and New York have shrinking populations according to Wikipedia. And even if the estimates are wrong and they do have growing populations you still need to consider the fact that the Southern states are growing much faster. Federal power is shifting south. If you like the politics of New York and California that's a long-term problem that needs to be resolved.

California has a "Neutral Decrease" in population and New York has a "Neutral Increase" according to Wikipedia. I'm gonna go with the 5 year trendline, which is up. > And even if the estimates are wrong Nice, covering all your bases. > Southern states are growing much faster Yeah, smaller states grow faster than larger ones.

I'm talking specifically about this phenomena[1]. I wasn't agreeing with the GP that these policies are "oppressive". I'm only informing you that these states are not experiencing "explosive growth" and the downstream effects of that fact.

1. https://thearp.org/blog/apportionment/2030-apportionment-for...

Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate

#109

Post by pc86 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #94
garbawarb wrote: post #6

When I was a new grad moving to the US and deciding where to live and work, the biggest draw of Seattle was its lack of income tax. Of course this particular $1 million threshold wouldn't apply to me until I'm very late in my career, or have a lucky year, or get married to a high-income person (the $1 million threshold applies to married couples, not just individuals) but Seattle loses a lot of its appeal if it's not…

Raising income taxes for those making over $1 million while cutting taxes paid by people making under $1 million makes it cheaper (in employer cost for the same disposable income; looked at a different way, it provides more disposable income for the same nominal pay) to hire workers across most of the income spectrum of any industry (even in tech—most workers in the field aren’t making over $1 million/yr).

The only people making more than $1M in W2 income are in fields where nearly everyone is going to be making that. Highly specialized physicians come to mind pretty quickly but I'm sure there are "lots of" (relatively speaking) attorneys making that too, and probably some other fields where it's more doable than something like tech or sales.

There is no way this meaningfully changes the income distribution of hires in any industry.

Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate

#110

Post by pc86 »

ambicapter wrote: post #10
garbawarb wrote: post #6

When I was a new grad moving to the US and deciding where to live and work, the biggest draw of Seattle was its lack of income tax. Of course this particular $1 million threshold wouldn't apply to me until I'm very late in my career, or have a lucky year, or get married to a high-income person (the $1 million threshold applies to married couples, not just individuals) but Seattle loses a lot of its appeal if it's not…

The assumption of course being that high-income people moving in is good for everyone.

If I had to choose I'd probably pick a neighbor who makes 3x what I do than 1/3. But I don't think it matters at all.
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