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The state I live in, Washington, has no income tax. It’s against the law.

What you’ll read in this article is that our legislature is trying apply a tax on businesses with employees who are paid more than $150k a year. All in the name of battling homelessness.

Sounds great does’t it? Not so fast.

The Seattle City Counsel passed a “head tax” on Seattle business last year (you’ll also read that in the article too). That tax was aimed at large corporations whom they feel are exploiting workers and causing the housing costs to go up. So, they would tax these companies X number of dollars per employee, over a certain number of employees. If I remember correctly, it was $550/per employee for really large corporations and $250/per employee for smaller ones. Small business were exempt, supposedly. The counsel soon rescinded that because they did it illegally by holding secret meetings, behind closed doors, etc etc etc.

Now, instead of the local group trying to unfairly tax corporations, the state legislature is taking up the issue and calling it an “excise tax”. As one person interviewed in the article calls it, “New coat of paint on a bad idea.”

The City of Seattle, King County, and others have tried to pass an income tax on high earners ($400K+) several different times.  It has consistently been voted down by citizens and the courts as illegal and against the state constitution.

This new effort by the state legislature is essentially moving the high income earners tax from the earner to the employer. Thus, it is an income tax, they have just prettied of the terminology to try and disguise what it actually is.

Our Democrat friends, who constantly like to have their hands in our pockets are at it again. Our Democrat friends are now also playing a different game at every level of politics – if you don’t like the definition of a word, give it a different one and shame everyone who disagrees with you. (I use the word “friend” very loosely.)

This issue is no different. They want their hands in our pockets again….and they don’t like the definition of “income tax” so they just keep renaming it in the hope that no one is paying attention.