The Robin Hood Approach – and I support it!

I’m voting yes on Initiative 1098 this fall and I encourage you to do the same! And Like Bill Gates Sr. – I would be supporting it even if I were rolling in the dough! Washington State has the most regressive taxes of any state in the country! In Washington, poor people (those making less than $20,000 per year) pay 17.3% of their income in taxes, but people who earn $537,000 or more a year only pay 2.6% of their income in taxes! Check out the article in this weeks Stranger – Tax the Filthy Rich!

This is the result of our states heavy reliance in the sales tax, which accounts for over 50% of all state revenue! Think about this – two families, one rich and one poor buy the basket of food at the grocery store. They also pay the exact same tax for the same basket of food – for the poor family this is a much bigger burden than the rich family. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in its 2009 report entitled: Who Pays? – A Distributional Analysis of the Tax System in all 50 States, identifies the 10 most regressive tax states – Washington State is right at the top of the list! In Washington State we ask our poorest residents – those in the bottom 20% of the income scale – to pay up to six times as much of their income in taxes as we ask the wealthy to pay.

There are many reasons to support this initiative. Only 38,400 of Washington’s wealthiest individuals will be taxed. These are folks who can afford it and should be contributing more! Remember we have the likes of Microsoft (Bill Gates Sr. has put up $500,000 of this own money to support the initiative) Amazon, Boeing (although sadly not based in Seattle anymore), Starbucks, Weyerhaeuser, REI, Nordstrom's, Costco Alaska Airlines just to name a few! There are some rich, rich folks in this state!

Please join me in supporting Initiative 1098 this fall! 

Later - Jim