Mike Fagan, one of Tim Eyman’s initiative-filing cohorts, makes this particularly brain-dead claim:
Fagan said I-1033, like other ideas floated by Voters Want More Choices, is about giving citizens a voice and working to change a “regressive tax system.”
If Initiative 1033 is about making our tax system less regressive—by shifting the disproportionate tax burden off of low-income and middle-income families—why would I-1033 do this?
• Eventually give the richest man in the world, Bill Gates, up to a $571,000 break on the $1 million in annual property taxes he pays on his Medina mansion.
• Slash the taxes on billionaire Paul Allen’s waterfront home, on Mercer Island, by up to $150,000.
• Over time eliminate $1.7 million of the annual property taxes that Bellevue mogul Kemper Freeman pays on just one of his malls, Bellevue Square.
I’m no Mukilteo watch salesman, but I don’t think making rich people pay less in taxes is “progressive.” Of course, Fagan may have a shaky grasp of what “progressive” means, but he does understand the angst felt by many middle income folks in the state know: Washington’s tax system is regressive as hell. As of 2003, our state’s tax structure was the most regressive in the nation.
But I thought the whole point of our state tax system was to heavily tax the poor and let the rich property owners pay the least of all.
Isn’t it?
yeah Will… that is what a sales tax does… mmm hmmm
you would think those rich guys consume more, therefore paying more taxes at the register…
all things considered
@3 You have to type slower for him… all those big words and difficult concepts are hard on his brain.
Just another reason we don’t take WiS’s posts very seriously, and are skeptical when he accidentally does make a good post.
You all tolerate him because his agenda is inline with yours… but you might want to work with him on substance…
just sayin’
@2: the poor & middle class pay a larger percentage of their income on goods and services subject to sales tax. the rich DO consume more, but not a higher percentage – let’s say 50k/yr. amy accountant needs a new hyundai to drive downtown from black diamond, vs. 500k/yr. otto orthopedist buying a new bmw 3 series for his 16 year old to drive from windemere to u prep. does the bmw cost 10x as much as the hyundai? possible, but probably more like 5x. so the impact in terms of percentage of income is less, while the orthopedist makes 10x what the accountant does – and miniscule if he makes his kid drive a hyundai, too.
an income tax – say 1-2% as many states have, and a lower sales & property taxes, would be much more progressive than our 9% sales, high property taxes, & no income tax.
@5 is right. Take a public finance class RealityCheck.
Maybe we have such a regressive system because voters keep voting for Eyman’s initiative thinking it will actually mean significant savings for them. They hear “less taxes” and that sounds like a good idea, and they don’t bother to do the math that tells them that the majority of benefits are passed on to people who own lots of property; not coincidentally the same people who are least likely to need the social services that will be cut as tax revenues fall.
It’s because people vote based on emotion only and are bad at math, essentially.
@5: Climb of my back, Max. You know full well that I can only afford to buy my sweet Tiffy a friggin’ Hyudai for her graduation. After her mom got the house, half my other assets, and her outrageous alimony judgement (Let’s not mention the child support, okay?) in the divorce I can barely afford a house in Renton and my new trophy wife’s Humvey. And now you want to burden me with a damned income tax!?!
WA is a giant plantation.
The biggest dupes are the idiot “middle class professionals” who think they are living large by being allowed to purchase a wooden house, ordered from Sears in 1925 for use by a coal shoveler at the bargain price of $752,000…or worse, to live in a concrete apartment on South Lake Union too small for the average family in the Chicago projects, and get to work 80 hours a week for wages that are easily eviscerated by private schools and $14 bagel breakfasts.
If Eyman’s initiative doesn’t apply to school, fire, park and library districts, which could continue to levy property taxes as always how does it drive the state’s property tax and many county and city property taxes all the way down to ZERO?
The most regressive? Let’s swing the pendulum the other way! Washington state should follow the lead of the state with the most highly progressive taxation, where the richest 1% account for half of all state income: the state of California.
Look, the cold hard reality is that the average Billionaire or Millionaire in this state pays a SMALLER percentage of their income (in all forms) as taxes in this state.
Unless they’re really really stupid and don’t have an accountant, trusts, and lawyers.
Now, admittedly, sports jocks and music stars tend to pay a lot (entourage, etc) – but the cold hard reality is someone working at Walmart pays a lot of their income in sales tax, while someone living on Mercer Island or the Highlands doesn’t.
Eyman works for the ultra-rich. Not the poor.
He feeds on their gullible nature.
@9 – my dad bought a 3 story millhouse and 42 acres for $5000 back in the mid 60s.
Housing prices mean zilch and are relative to where you live.
@5 just glanced back at this thread.
I never said I disagreed! I was being snarky…. read my post again with that in mind, and you’ll see…
guess I have to do a better job of explaining myself.
With regards to income tax, is that it is a scary proposition to entrust legislators in liberal states from keeping that “rate” @ 1% or 2%… somehow it always slips a percentage point or 2, and pretty soon we are right back where we were before.
Income tax is great provided it is kept extremely limited and is combined with an absolute gurantee of being used to offset lowering sales tax.
Unfortunately the legislature will just see an income tax as an additional revenue cash cow, and expand their budgets accordingly.
You know this is true…
Stupid Fuck.
Check the link above by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy:
Washington’s Tax Code: Soak the Poor and Middle Class, Spare the Rich
“When all Washington taxes are totaled up, the study found that:
# The wealthiest one percent of Washington taxpayers—with average incomes of $1.6million—pay only 3.3% of their income in Washington state and local taxes. After accounting for tax savings from federal itemized deductions the effective rate becomes just 3.2%.
# Middle-income Washington taxpayers earning between $31,000 and $48,000 pay11.1% of their income in Washington state and local taxes, almost three and a half times the effective rate of the very wealthy.
# But Washington families earning less than $17,000—the poorest fifth of Washington non-elderly taxpayers—pay a whopping 17.6% of their income in state and local taxes,more than five times the rate on the best off.
The study found that Washington’s taxes are so extremely regressive because the state lacks an income tax and instead relies primarily on regressive sales and excise taxes to pay for public services.”
@14 – our state constitution – which I know you hate – permits a flat one percent income tax with a single exemption.
An example would be an exemption for income tax paid to the IRS.
Now, if you don’t like our state – which Eyman obviously hates – you can move.
We won’t miss you.
@15 Go Fuck Yourself you dumbass.
Did you read my subsequent post?
Fucking moron.
@17 don’t worry… I’ll still post in SLOG just for you though! 🙂
Aww, how sweet, Reality Check … since you’re so kind, I’ll let you jump from Aurora Bridge if you’d like.
I wish we could get back the tax dollars we wasted on Tim Eyman’s tuition at WSU.
#3 “This tax has nothing to do with paying more at the store where one buys shoes or pants.”
More like paying the same and getting less. If we’re limiting general revenue, the initiative COULD take the excess and reduce ALL forms of state income proportionally, but instead I’ll still be paying my 9% and the excess will go straight to property owners.
#10 “As I’ve repeatedly explained, the amount of money school districts are allowed to raise via local levies is capped by statute at 24% of the total they receive in combined state and federal funding (as high as 33% in a handful of districts). That means that if state funding drops 25%, so too will the amount of money local districts are allowed to raise.”
#18 you never did explain how #2 makes sense, or was funny, or whatever it was supposed to be…
and the fact that you bought the gross simplification of #3 and called it a “difficult concept” is telling.