Washington's tax on income above $1 million sparks $10 million campaign fight

The campaign money is small against the revenue in play. The Spokesman-Review sizes the fight at $10 million, and the Department of Revenue's August estimate puts first-year collections at $3.1 billion. Together both sides are spending about 0.32% of a single year's take ^[6][7][22].

One region has a payer count attached to it. Department of Revenue data has 790 residents across the five legislative districts covering Spokane County paying $96.3 million, an average of about $121,900 each ^[9][19]. Run that back through a 9.9% rate applied above the first million and the average payer in those districts holds roughly $1.23 million of income above the threshold, about $2.23 million in all ^[3][20]. Those five districts supply 3.1% of the statewide first-year figure ^[21].

The same August estimate shows $8.3 billion for 2029 to 2031, and the report does not say whether that window is two fiscal years or three ^[8]. Divided three ways it is about $2.77 billion a year, under the first-year number; divided two ways, $4.15 billion ^[23].

Ten times since the court held in 1933 that income was property, Washingtonians have been asked whether to adopt a tax, and ten times the answer was no; in 2010, the last time, 36% supported it ^[2][10][11]. This fall's ballot asks something else. The tax is already law, and residents are deciding whether it remains ^[18]. I would not read the 36% straight across, because a voter who declines to create a tax is not necessarily the same voter who strikes one already written into a budget.

The case against the tax is that the absence of an income tax helped build a business environment that brought some of the world's biggest companies to Washington and let them grow ^[12]. The reporting stops short of estimating how many payers would move. State Sen. Jeff Holy, the Cheney Republican, expects the threshold to come down over time. "I just see it as something that is establishing an availability that is almost unavoidable that is so attractive that it's going to be brought down," Holy said ^[13].

State Sen. Marcus Riccelli, the Spokane Democrat, said he rejects that, and that neither he nor Gov. Bob Ferguson supports expanding the tax to lower incomes ^[15]. "At the end of the day, voters will always have a say," Riccelli said ^[14].

I think the tax survives the ballot and the argument moves to the state Supreme Court, where the money spent this autumn buys nothing. If instead it loses by something near the 64% who declined to support the 2010 measure, then the ten-for-ten history was the better guide and this reading was wrong ^[26].