News Apr 18, 2019 at 12:20 pm

It's a sin tax on companies who pay people million dollar salaries.

Comments

1

Excellent idea.

Can we combine this with a capital gains tax too?

2

I'm liking this Nguyen guy more every day. I always think calculations like this shouldn't involve a static number though, a million dollars today could be only a hundred in a few generations...

3

Guess some folks forget how poorly the looney left's last attempts at an income tax did at the polls in Washington state.

What did I-1098 lose by?

30%!

Plus the Washington State constitution clearly makes this illegal.

Double whammy.

Politically unpalatable. Constutionally DOA.

Here's a thought, take the dollars you have and spend them better rather than taking a bigger slice of the pie for your friends in the SIEU.

4

Er, other way around? Either way, absolute values are short-sighted because currencies are subject to inflation/deflation

5

"It's a sin tax on companies who pay people million dollar salaries"

Amazon paid Bezos $81,840 in 2017.

8

"Uh, that’s an income tax. "

Not if you get cute and call it an excise tax until the courts slap you around the head.

Economic Opportunity Institute, the same morons who brought us the “Latte Tax”, led by taxacoholic John Burbank (lost by 36%!).

9

@7 - Exactly

10

Hmmm, who to trust regarding the viability and legality of the tax?

The Executive Director of a locally based and well respected non-profit organization with a published list of relevant accolades and achievements spelled out on their webpage here...

http://www.opportunityinstitute.org/about-us/our-successes/

...or some angry, anonymous internet trolls? Well, I'm torn!

11

There is income inequality because the lower class keeps making choices that harm it's financial security and well being.

Having kids out of wedlock.
Borrowing money to get a degree in Theatre.
Smoking pot and playing video games instead of developing skills the market will reward.
etcetera etcetera etcetera

Envy and Greed are a poor substitute for making sound choices.

12

@10: Anyone interested in getting answers to that question (or anything else) typically don't get them from comments on blogs.

13

@11,

So all you need to do in order to solve the problems laid out is to convince young people to refrain from having sex, playing video games and enjoying the theater? We wish you luck in your ambitious endeavor and would like to ask that you keep us posted on your progress good sir!

14

"well respected"

You're talking about John Burbank's crew, author of the infamous "Espresso Tax" that lost by 36% in Seattle and was ridiculed and mocked in newspapers around the world?

Or the failed city income tax in 2017?

Yeah, I feel the respect.

15

Gee... I can't imagine anyone would respond to this. Perhaps they gross up for the tax and the state gets the incremental benefit forever. Or... the company leaves the state.

Wow. Winner.

17

Excess compensation? Ridiculous.
Will never happen, very unamerican. The heart is in the right place, but it's a waste of everyone's time and is simply virtue signalling.

18

You guys sure do love your property taxes :P Who cares if the cost of living is outstripping wages, we gotta make sure the millionaires feel welcome!

20

I’d like see a special tax on overly-sensitive politicians.

21

" published list of relevant accolades and achievements spelled out on their webpage here..."

Well, all righty then, let's take a looksie. Oh look, the 2017 Seattle "progressive" income tax in the list of successes. Thrown out by the courts in .... 2017.

Maybe you have a different definition of "success"? I'm all ears.

Respect. Ya gotta earn it!

22

And oh look, Washington Policy Center just skewered John Burbank's tax thugs and Seattle's failed (success!) city income tax, using uncovered emails that show the city attorney told the council that the Economic Opportunity Institute's tax plan was illegal but they went ahead with it anyway:

https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/just-released-records-show-city-attorney-warned-seattle-officials-that-a-city-income-tax-is-against-the-law

But keep chasing those windmills!

23

"Here is the lie in the argument, "As it should. Creating millionaires at the expense of middle class and poor people is bad""

@7 No doubt. That's because these morons think an economy is like a pizza and everyone gets a slice but millionaires are greedy and take all the slices.

These fools think life is like a pizza; if some people have too many slices, other people have to eat the pizza box. They have no answer to the argument for more pizza parlors baking more pizzas. The solution to our problems, they say, is redistribution of the pizzas we've got—with low-cost, government-subsidized pepperoni somehow materializing as the result of higher taxes on pizza-parlor owners. It's zero-sum thinking. Cave dweller thinking.

The evil of zero-sum thinking and redistributive politics has nothing to do with which things are taken or to whom those things are given or what the sum of zero things is supposed to be. The evil lies in denying people the right, the means, and, indeed, the duty to make more things. The rewards go to the productive.

24

Words fail me to describe this idea. Insane and idiotic come to mind, but they fall far short of my real sentiment.

Look, liberals. It doesn't matter what two parties agree to exchange. It's no business of yours or the government's. Companies pay these people huge amounts of money because those companies feel they're worth the cost. Does lowering their compensation put a single penny into your pocket? No. What's the net result of this policy? Companies in more business-friendly states will lure these high-paid workers away from Washington, or the companies who employ them will decide to relocate to a state that isn't so idiotically insane. Neither of these is good for Washington. These high-paid workers don't just stuff their money in mattresses. They spend it. They buy things. luxury things that are made by normal working class people. This creates jobs and helps the economy and the lower-paid people. Concentration of wealth is not a bug in our economic system, it's a feature. It allows wealth to be used as risk capital to start new businesses or expand existing one - again, creating jobs and opportunity. Workers win. Consumers win with lower priced, higher quality goods. And these wealthy earners pay taxes already on their earnings, usually at usurious rates. Or when they spend it, they pay sales taxes. They pay exorbitant property taxes on the real estate that this wealth allows them to own.

You should never look in your neighbor's bowl, except to make sure it's not empty. Your problem is you think this is a zero-sum game, that if they have a larger slice of the pie, your slice must be smaller. Guys, this is America. We'll make more pie.

Look at California. It's economically bankrupt, financially stagnant. Every day, companies and highly qualified workers flee the state. Is this what you want for Washington?

The government has no business interfering in the wage negotiation between a company and an employee. Companies who overpay their employees will pay the price without the government's interference. Liberals never seem to be able to understand second and third order consequences of their plans. They don't seem to understand that companies and individuals will alter their behavior to adapt to insane government policy, and often the result will be the exact opposite effect than what the government was trying to do.

Just. Stop. If you want to go live in a socialist utopia, go to Venezuela, or Cuba. You can't experience it in Scandinavia any more, because those countries have looked into the abyss and backed quietly away from socialism. No, you don't have the secret sauce to make socialism work where literally every other attempt in history has failed, sometimes in spectacular and bloody fashion.

25

@24 We’re talking about people who think rich people just stuff their money under their mattresses like Scrooge McDuck and roll around in it. That’s what happens with a poetry therapy degree from evergreen state college or a pastry arts degree from Seattle Central COMMUNITY College

26

Rediculously excessive lengths to avoid fixing your fucked up state and passing an income tax. This is fucking dumb.

27

And when it’s over you’ll still be taxing your lowest quintile earners an absolutely immoral amount. Seriously, the people backing this can and probably should go fuck themselves.

28

@24, you’re a fucking idiot too!

California has a lower unemployment rate than Washington and a budget surplus, stupid.

We also have an income tax like a civilized state should.

29

@25

No, we know what rich people do. They invest money in increasingly suspect and outrageously dangerous financial schemes chasing marginally declining yields and utility until they burst bubbles and take the economy down with them. We could stabilize the economy a bit by taxing THEIR FUCKING INCOME!!!!

30

Wow are the right-wing trolls scared of this one! Their appearance here in farce shows that nicely.

Taxing a corporation because of excessive disparity in compensation is not an income tax, foolish trolls. Lie harder next time.

As noted above, a capital-gains tax would be a beautiful complement to this proposed tax.

31

Tax the rich, already, and repeal Citizens United.
Bwhahahahahahahahahaha, choke on it, MAGA trolls!
@30 tensor: I noticed that, too.

32

@30 Want to bet a testicle this will die in the courts like all your other attempts?

Washington State courts have ruled repeatedly a graduated income tax is unconstitutional. Article VII of Washington’s Constitution states: “all taxes shall be uniform upon the same class of property within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax and shall be levied and collected for public purposes only.”

Plus they have to be limited to 1% by law.

You’ve lost every single legal challenge since the first attempt in 1933.

And getting cute and calling it an excise tax won’t work. You’ve also tried that and the courts have ruled that the intent is exactly the same.

But could luck!

Now start screaming “troll”.

33

“Dangerous financial schemes”

You’re right, loaning money to high risk people to buy homes and using freddie and fanny to back those bad loans was a big mistake. Same thing with student loans today.

Credit should only be given to the credit worthy.

34

This tax is the opposite of what should happen.

Companies should be taxed progressively higher per the discrepancy between their highest paid employee and their lowest paid employee, with another coefficient raising their tax for the number of low paid employees.

36

@30: But a capital gains tax would just be an income tax, and you still have that bothersome constitutional issue.

37

We already have a capital gains tax.

38

Clearly we should cut taxes instead! It's working so well everywhere else. You guys are hilarious.

39

Nope. Just tell the SEIU we’re not their piggy bank and the state should live within its means.

41

@40: 75% correct, but there is still systemic racism, communities ravaged by environmental disasters, lead in water, and all those other "inconvenient" issues. Thoughtful conservatives have to think about these things because if the masses don't have purchasing power, your nest egg will be an increasing anomaly.

42

Ok so, this has no chance of passing. It is Tim Eyman-esque. Meant to roil the masses and drum up support for Democrats “fighting the good fight” while actually doing nothing to address income inequality.
A comprehensive tax reform package that reduces sales and property taxes with a new tax similar to this that isn’t simply a money grab targeting the rich because “they can afford it so screw them” would get bipartisan support. Instead we are wasting time on the income tax fight, rent control fight and the dumbest tax of all time, the Head Tax. Anyone who ever supported the Head Tax I ask you, why should Dick’s burgers be charged the same exact per employee fee as Amazon? And how would that impact hiring at Dick’s? Keep on supporting higher gas taxes to “fight” climate change when the reduction would be less than 2% emissions hurting poor people the most who have no choice but to commute to work and pat yourself on the back for taking the moral high ground.

43

First, the headline should be “...income inequality,” but given the large amount of weak trolling this Post attracted, we can understand why the headline writer fudged it a bit.

For example, @32: “Want to bet a testicle this will die in the courts like all your other attempts?”

No, because you can’t pay up if you lose.

@35: Your long history of losing on the minimum wage failed to teach you anything about economics, eh? (Specifically, the limits of your knowledge of said topic.)

No one is demanding that janitors, engineers, and CEOs all get paid the same. What we are saying is that vast income disparity causes such problems that it makes sense to address it this way. Bad sports metaphors don’t help:

“Imagine going to the Seahawks and every game ends in a tie? Boring.”

Let me guess: you’re only happy when “your” team wins in a beatdown? A tie is far more exciting to most spectators.

44

@42: If you honestly believe that ANY tax increase will get support from our local Republicans, you haven’t been paying any attention to them for the past twenty years. Give an example of any tax increase for which any Republican legislator voted in that time. Just one.

46

Interesting concept. For those who keep insisting it's an income tax - you can't possibly be that dumb. It's the employer who's paying the salary that's taxed, not the person receiving the salary.

Actually, I'd love to see something like this instituted on a national level. Today's US corporations are managed and operated solely to maximize shareholder value (and most executive compensation packages include big blocks of shares) and maximize executive bonuses, compensation, and perks.

Customers (and non-executive employees) are routinely screwed over in favor of creating executive wealth. Once upon a time (back in the mid- to late-last century) massive product recalls were unheard of. Now they're just about a weekly event. Producing a safe, quality product, and customer satisfaction (though given lip service) are no longer corporate priorities.

Wonder why the safety of Boeing's planes is now under scrutiny? Think it through. Who does it appear Boeing cares about more? It's executives and their compensation packages or the passengers in its planes whose lives it put at risk. Right now, it looks like passenger safety was Boeing's lowest priority.

47

A Tax on the Seahawks and Mariners organizations.


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