If the fairness issue can’t move the serious people to start the conversation on tax restructuring (and Washington State does have the most regressive tax structure in the nation), perhaps the negative economic impact of our current tax structure will?
Washington is among the states that depend most heavily on sales taxes for revenue, and a new report links a decline in growth of such funds to the rising concentration of wealth for the richest U.S. households.
The study by credit-ratings agency Standard & Poor’s shows a significant decline in annual average state tax growth among the 10 most sales tax-dependent states, which includes Washington.
That report ties the slowed growth to rising income inequality, which appears to stunt overall economic growth. S&P also links it to a slowdown in average yearly gains in state tax revenues.
Washington is in fact the most sales-tax-dependent state in the nation, and it is crippling our ability to make the human and physical infrastructure investments we need. Our state’s inability to fund McCleary? Blame the sales tax. King County Metro’s 400,000 hours of service cuts? Blame the sales tax.
Seriously, serious people, we need to add some sort of tax on income and/or wealth into the mix.
Wealthy people are grossly undertaxed in Washington. They pay one-sixth as much of their incomes in state/local taxes as the poor — and that’s before you count city halls’ take (“takings” is more apt) from their municipal court fine factories. It takes people without consciences to maintain such a system. We apparently have a lot of them around here.
There is no political will to start a conversation about tax reform. Mike Lowry was vilified for trying to discuss the possibility of a state income tax. His own staff tried to keep him from mentioning the topic. Until we have some leadership on the issue (and it sure won’t come from the Republicans) it’s likely to remain marginalized.
How does. Oregon rate without a sales tax?
According to S&P, Oregon has revenue problems similar to ours due to over reliance on the income tax, but at least their tax system is much fairer than ours in terms of how it distributes the tax burden.
What seems to work best is a balanced mix of income, sales, and property taxes. That’s what approximately 45 states have done, it seems to work better than anything else, and it’s what our state should do.
You’re never going to get any traction on this topic unless you eliminate one tax for an income tax. Ron Sims floated a plan to get rid of the B&O and sales tax in favor of an income tax in his run for governor; you’d have to float something similar to get any support.
@5 But Ron Sims didn’t get traction for his proposal either (and it didn’t eliminate the sales tax, it reduced it).
I don’t think it is useful to look to past proposals for lessons in what we can or can’t do. Liquor privatization failed repeatedly. Charter schools failed repeatedly. And yet they are both now law.
Washington voters need to be made to understand how dire the revenue situation is—that this is not something our economy can outgrow, and that the consequences of our revenue shortfall will severely impact their everyday lives. The actual details of the tax reforms aren’t as important as flipping opinion on the underlying issue.
Is there any problem that the solution for Goldy isn’t raising taxes?
@5 “Ron Sims floated a plan to get rid of the B&O and sales tax in favor of an income tax”
This idea actually came from the Gates Commission on tax reform.
@7 You’re an idiot. Washington residents have received billions of dollars of tax cuts as a result of reduced consumer spending. (Less spending = less sales tax paid.) Goldy isn’t talking about raising taxes, he’s only talking about restoring lost revenue so as to maintain public services at previous levels, but you’re too lazy to think or get any facts and instead choose to knee-jerk the issue with a moronic bumper sticker slogan. Fuck you and your ilk. We should impose a jerk tax.
6: Considering I-1098 couldn’t even pass in King County not even 4 years ago, I don’t know how you can’t consider past results in figuring out a workable tax reform plan.
The problem is that people probably *do* have a general grasp of the many underlying issues as you correctly identify – our current tax system is unfair and is burdensome to lower incomes, for example. They just don’t trust the state (right or wrong) not to “screw” them. Just look at the complaints around liquor privatization; folks think that the state pulled a fast one and tacked on hidden taxes.
@10 The public knew before the election that Costco spent $20 million to privatize liquor sales. No one with more than one brain cell could have failed to realize they didn’t do that to lower liquor prices. But you can’t talk sense into people who have no sense.
Oh gosh! Republican boys will be boys..
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/l.....e-comments
Our local village idiot troll would vote for this guy in a heartbeat!
@11
The state didn’t impose higher taxes, the voters themselves voted FOR them. The increase was spelled out in the initiative, which no one bothered to read (except me, I voted against it).
@12 He was a sacrificial candidate running in a gimme district for the Democrats anyway. Still, for the sake of their image, you’d think a political party would want even a token candidate to be an adult instead of a child.