An effort to balance what is considered the nation's most regressive state tax code comes before the Washington Supreme Court on Thursday, in a case that could overturn a prohibition on income taxes that dates to the 1930s.
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They pay at least six times more in taxes as a percentage of household income than the wealthiest residents do, according to lawmakers, and middle-income residents pay two to four times as much. “Washington’s unique, unprecedented and unconstitutional tax on capital gains will discourage our state’s resident entrepreneurs and investors from investing in new and expanded businesses in our state,” the Building Industry Association of Washington and Washington Retail Association wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief. “It will also cause significant numbers of individual business owners to leave Washington to avoid the new tax.
Last year, Douglas County Superior Court Judge Brian Huber in central Washington sided with those challenging the capital gains tax as a forbidden income tax. State Attorney General Bob Ferguson appealed, saying Huber got it wrong because the tax is not on property — it’s on what an owner does with that property by selling it.
The arguments come as progressives are making a push in several states to have the rich pay more in taxes. Bills announced this month in California, New York, Illinois, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, Washington and Connecticut all revolve around the idea that the richest Americans need to pay more. But the proposals all face questionable prospects.
They say the state’s description of the measure as an excise tax is merely political maneuvering designed to conceal its true nature. The 41 states that tax capital gains tax it as income, they argue.
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