Washington & California Voters to Decide about Taxing Millionaires & Billionaires

Let’s Go Washington submitted over 511,408 signatures to Washington’s Secretary of State’s office late last week. The group wants to repeal the 9.9% income tax on incomes over $1 million passed by the last Legislature. Governor Bob Ferguson signed it into law on March 30th.

The group needed to gather 309,000 signatures to get the tax issue on the ballot. Assuming the over 500,000 signatures will do so, the now titled Initiative 645 will be voted upon in November.

Spokesman, Brian Heywood said the group had no trouble collecting that many signatures. He believes the initiative will pass in November.

“When you go out and you talk to over half a million people, you hear their voices, you hear what they’re saying,” he said. “Number one is not one single person we talk to believes Olympia when they say this income tax is not coming to them. They know it’s coming for them.”

The initiative does leave the law’s tax breaks in place. They do away with the sales tax on diapers, products for personal care, and for over-the-counter drugs. The law also does away with some small companies paying the state’s main business tax and expands the Working Families Tax Credit.

If this passes in November, and because the tax breaks are left in the initiative, the state will find itself with a $3 billion income loss while it gains $570 million in expenses.

In California the billionaires tax will be on the November ballot. It is for a one-time 5% wealth tax on people worth over a $1 billion. The ballot measure was sponsored by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West labor group.

Worries abound — like those in Washington State — that millionaires and billionaires will leave the Golden State in droves. Many worry that the 5% actually ends up being more than 5% and that the taxation could trickle down to those poor people only making $1 million a year.

Source link: Washington State Standard — https://bit.ly/4f0IiIe

Source link: Seattle Times — https://bit.ly/4glrjCN

Source link: Inc. — https://bit.ly/4p9bKk0