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Who wants to pay the millionaire tax?
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We all might get a chance. Last week Sen. Kohl-Welles introduced a 1% income tax bill, SB 6147. The bill seeks to impose a tax on individuals making $500,000, or couples making $1 million.
But there's a flaw in the bill that could result in the 1% percent tax inadvertently applying to every taxpayer in the state! (I wish I could claim credit, but someone else pointed this out to me.) Section 301 of the bill imposes a 1% tax on "all taxable income of resident individuals." Section 407 then lists the "standard deductions" -- $1 million for joint returns and $500,000 for individuals. As most bills do, SB 6147 contains a severability clause, meaning if one section of the bill is struck down in court, the rest of the bill will survive.
If passed, the millionaire tax would doubtless be challenged as unconstitutional as it appears to violate the "uniformity" clause in the Washington Constitution (Art. VII, Sec. 1). If a court struck down the section of the bill listing the standard deductions, the rest of the bill could still survive -- which would require anyone with federal taxable income to pay the state's 1% income tax.
Critics of SB 6147 point out that future legislatures could reduce the income threshold in order to generate additional revenue. Well, we might not have to wait for that.
Good bumper sticker? I tried to soak the rich and got wet myself.
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