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?
WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate
91–100 of 193 posts
Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
States with massive, growing populations? Must not be as oppressive as stated.
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.
CA and NY are both expected to lose 4 seats next census, based on current trends. Saw this in an HN submissions yesterday about gerrymandering and how it might be a losing strategy for Dems looking out into the 2030s.
Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also isn’t this illegal? I thought the state constitution says it is illegal. The state constitution treats income as property, and states that property taxes must be uniform. So the bill is actually a state-wide, uniform 9.9% income tax but with the first million dollars exempt. It is expected to be challenged almost immediately in probably a long court battle so we will see what the arguments are. I'm in support…
Do you have anything specific you want the money spent on? Or is it just a punish the rich type of support?
Yes. Washington desperately needs infrastructure improvements, our state has not kept up with population growth, especially in areas outside of the Seattle metro. Go north into the Skagit valley or Whatcom county, we have two lane roads over capacity with many fatal accidents each year, power lines still above ground that get taken out year, after year every time we have a wind storm (happens a lot, especially in the fall).
There's a reason it's a long standing joke that our state bird is the traffic cone.
Near where I live there's still remains and pot holes from a landslide a year ago that has not been cleaned up or repaired.
I'm not a "punish the rich just for the sake of it" type person, but I do believe that you shouldn't get to move here, use the state's economy to extract wealth, and then not contribute back into it's development, infrastructure and people.
Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate
#94When 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).
Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate
#95Earlier 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.
The person earning $50m a year is profiting on the labor of hundreds of thousands of people. Rent seeking on their labor and skills, relying 100,000x more on the infrastructure that made them rich. No one makes $50m a year in a vacuum, they do so by utilizing the economy they live in and rely on.
> Rent seeking on their labor and skills
Paying people for their work isn’t “rent seeking.” If I hire someone to replace my roof shingles, is that “rent seeking?”
Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate
#96I don't understand how anyone in good conscience can vote against this tax. As a reminder, this tax does not affect income under a million US dollars. From the article, if you earn a dollar over a million dollars, you owe 9.9% so you need to pay a dime in income tax.
Washington is a one-party State where not even Democrats trust the Democrats on tax issues.
Many Democrats object to it in principle because the new income tax is unconstitutional on its face; they support an income tax but ignoring the constitution because it is inconvenient and blocking people from voting on it is gross. The supreme court in Washington won't be any help, they are have an unfortunate track record of rubberstamping whatever the party wants.
This is in addition to many years of tax increases exceeding growth, the regular introduction of new poorly designed taxes that are simultaneously wasted and expanded with no accountability.
Many Democrats fully expect a rugpull is coming because that is the recent history in Washington. Regressive taxes are never lowered or removed, they just stack new ones on top of them.
Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in Texas. People move here and are flabbergasted by our property taxes.
Tax rates under 2% of property value should not "flabbergast" anyone. I prefer a state having a high property tax rate and cheap housing over an income tax. I'm sure most Texans do, too.
> Tax rates under 2% of property value should not "flabbergast" anyone
The national average effective property tax rate is, IIRC, below 1.5% for all property and below 1% for owner-occupied homes. It is really not surprising that people coming to Texas under the popular illusion that it is a tax refuge whose property tax expectations are set by the places they are coming from are flabbergasted by Texas’ property taxes.
Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s a beachhead that will expand. The history of income taxes shows that. Once you have established an income tax, the next fight will be to raise it, or lower the income limit, and over years, it will end up covering everyone. The government is incentivized to over spend and then try to dig their way out be expanding taxes, but there is a limit to what you can tax. You want people to vote for a millionaire tax tie…
If that means curbing the comparatively high consumption taxes in WA, then it's for the best. The lowest income brackets pay an outrageous percentage of their income to taxes compared to the upper brackets because of them.
There are no plans to reduce consumption taxes in any meaningful way. This is one of the reasons so many Democrats are against it.
This new tax regime makes no attempt to improve the tax structure or reduce taxes for anyone.
Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't understand how anyone in good conscience can vote against this tax Then you have intellectual blinders on. There’s good reasons to have broad based taxes instead of singling out rich people. In Sweden, for example, the top tax bracket kicks in at 1.5x the median income. In Germany, the second highest 42% bracket kicks in around 70,000 euros and the top 45% bracket kicks in at 277,000 euros. None of the coun…
The income disparity between Germany and California is gargantuan as you approach the top percentiles. In the 1%, average income in Germany is 272k usd. In California, it's north of 1mil usd. At 0.1%, it's 1.1 mil usd in Germany and 3.2+ mil in California. The distributions between high and low income earners are much flatter in Germany because it is harder to abuse the system to get to such salaries. No so in Americ…
You’re comparing to California, but we’re talking about this proposed Washington tax. California’s tax schedule is actually much more like Germany’s than this proposed Washington income tax.
In California, the big jump comes at $72,000, where the 9.3% rate kicks in. The $742,000 rate is only a little higher, at 12.3%. That’s similar to Germany where 42% kicks in at 70,000 euros (top 15%) and the top rate is only a little higher at 45%.
Re: WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't understand how anyone in good conscience can vote against this tax. For all the reasons you can vote against any tax. Taxation is not the default. The justification always has to come from the proponents. And I say this as a pro tax person who has voted for more taxes and lives in a high income tax state.
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 went down for nearly everyone in rate terms, but the percentage benefit was larger for high earners and corporations.