Everybody’s heard the old saying about the certainty of death and taxes, but maybe it’s time to add a third absolute to that equation: the certainty of objecting to taxes.
We all do it. Often with good reason.
Consider property taxes for a moment. Say a middle-class couple bought a modest Yakima home 20 years ago with the intent of raising children and retiring in that home. Seems reasonable enough, right?
But property taxes are based on property values, so as new and nicer homes get built nearby, the couple’s home’s worth increases — so now they face annual tax bills that dwarf what they were paying when they first moved in. Their income hasn’t doubled or tripled in the past two decades, but their taxes sure have.
Yes, they could sell for a profit — but that’d likely be taxed, too. And since values are going up nearly everywhere else, what kind of Plan B home could they afford anyway? In effect, they’re being forced out through no fault of their own.
Stuff like that is what drives people to vote against levies for schools, public safety and other critically important public services.
It also contributes to knee-jerk opposition to anything that smacks of a new tax — such as a measure introduced in the Legislature by Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle, that adds a 1% wealth tax to anyone who has more than $250 million.
The bill is similar to legislation under consideration in California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland and New York.
Exacting money from someone just because they’ve been inordinately successful might seem harsh and unfair. It does to Senate Republican Leader John Braun of Centralia anyway.
“There’s no financial justification for adding more taxes in our state,” he said Jan. 17, two days before the text of Frame’s bill was even released. “Just doesn’t make any sense.”
But Braun’s reaction betrays that automatic objection we mentioned at the beginning. A phrase like “adding more taxes” raises everybody’s hackles before we’ve even had a chance to hear the details.
Remember, this isn’t a tax on everybody. Just people with more money than they could possibly spend in a lifetime.
And imagine how that tax, multiplied by the roughly 700 people in Washington who have at least $250 million, would affect the rest of us. It’d amount to about $3 billion in additional state funds, according to an analysis by the state Department of Revenue.
Under Sen. Frame’s bill, the money would go toward education, housing, services for the disabled and tax credits for low- and middle-income families. The first $250 million of assessed value would be exempted.
Think that’d help with the state’s homeless problems? How about with our ailing hospital system? Hey, maybe our couple trying to hang onto the house they’d hoped to retire in would get a little tax relief, too.
So we say let’s give Frame’s plan some serious thought. While we certainly don’t mean to penalize anyone for being successful, the wealth gap in this country has reached epic levels of inequity.
An extra billion or so in some key state programs could be life-changing for a lot of Washingtonians without leaving a mark on the state’s first-class section.
They’d all still have at least $250 million.
