https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/27/us/politics/washington-state-millionaires-tax.htmlVoters in Washington State will soon be asked to decide which they resent more: rich people or new taxes.At issue is the state’s new “millionaires tax,” a 9.9 percent tax on income over $1 million a year that is expected to bring in more than $3 billion annually and, in the process, ease if not solve the state’s ongoing fiscal problems.Critics want voters to repeal it and bar state leaders from imposing income taxes in the future, arguing the millionaires tax will drive out wealthy entrepreneurs and eventually lead to income taxes on everyone else.“The goal is to put an income tax on every Washingtonian,” former United States Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican, said at a recent news conference organized by one of the campaigns working to repeal the tax. “Don’t let them fool you.”The November election will test how voters feel about taxing the rich up and down the West Coast. In California, voters are considering both a “millionaire tax” and a “billionaire tax.” The less debated proposal asks voters to make permanent a temporary income tax hike on couples who earn at least $743,000 a year.Voters will also decide whether to approve a new wealth tax on people with at least $1 billion in assets, a proposal that has generated enormous blowback from wealthy residents as well as teachers and health care interests who fear it will damage the state budget.
But Washington is unique on the so-called Left Coast, one of just nine states that do not tax personal income, and voters have rejected income taxes 10 times over nearly a century. It is also at a crossroads. The state’s fiscal system, which relies on property taxes, sales taxes and other fees that hit lower-income residents harder, has not kept up with expansions in government programs and the rising cost of basic services.“People who don’t know much about Washington politics would assume we have a highly progressive tax code,” said Rian Watt, executive director of the nonprofit Economic Opportunity Institute, a progressive research and advocacy group in Seattle. “The reality is, we have a tax code written in the course of a couple of months in the 1930s.”This spring, the Democrat-dominated State Legislature approved the income tax for wealthy residents along with a slate of tax cuts for lower-income households, such as eliminating the state sales tax on diapers, soap and over-the-counter drugs.Repeal proponents say Washington’s tax system is a major reason the state has served as an incubator for companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Starbucks. The millionaires tax, along with the election of progressive and socialist candidates, including Mayor Katie Wilson of Seattle, sends a signal to businesses that they are no longer valued, they say.“This has gone from one of the most attractive places to start a business to the least attractive,” said Brian Heywood, a hedge fund millionaire whose political action committee collected more than 500,000 signatures to place the tax repeal on the ballot.
Washington has suffered high-profile departures in recent years as the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the Starbucks co-founder Howard Schultz moved to Florida. The Valve co-founder Gabe Newell recently bought an estate there.But just 25,000 households make enough to pay the new tax. A Cornell University researcher named Cristobal Young studied the impact of taxes on higher earners in New Jersey and California and found minimal out-migration in their wake. Washington also hasn’t yet seen significant out-of-state movement after lawmakers created a capital-gains tax in 2021.“Overwhelmingly, millionaires stay,” Mr. Young said. “They pay the new tax rate. They figure out ways around it. More likely there will be some people who were thinking of moving to Washington who change their minds, but it all amounts to migration at the margins.”The other big argument against the millionaires tax involves the camel’s nose under the tent: Once an income tax is established, state lawmakers may look beyond millionaires. Gov. Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, has pledged to veto any attempt to expand who pays or to raise the rate, but he won’t be in office forever.“Who do you trust?” Mr. Heywood said.Until recently, Mr. Heywood, who is also responsible for Washington ballot measures this fall that would expand parental rights over school records and ban transgender girls from playing scholastic sports, was the chief public face of the anti-tax effort.But allies recently turned to Ms. Herrera Beutler to replace Mr. Heywood, whose conservative politics have become one of the arguments for keeping the tax.Progressives have described the repeal initiative as “a tax break for Brian Heywood and his friends.” They’ve also recruited their own pro-tax millionaires, including the travel writer and TV host Rick Steves, who lives in Edmonds, Wash., and the “Jeopardy!” host Ken Jennings, who commutes to California from Seattle to tape the quiz show.
“I like the idea that we could bring back an America where it’s embarrassing for wealthy people to say, ‘Even though I could afford this, and it will improve public services in our state, I’d rather fight it,’” Mr. Jennings said.If the repeal passes, state leaders would lose billions of dollars in revenue that they are counting on for future budgets, forcing them to cut spending, reverse some of the accompanying tax relief or find other revenue.Opponents of the millionaires tax have also sued to stop its implementation. They argue that it is illegal under a 1933 Washington Supreme Court ruling that income counts as property. That decision effectively blocked a graduated income tax in the state, because the Washington Constitution requires property taxes to be “uniform.”The constitutional lawsuit is expected to reach the Washington Supreme Court before the tax takes effect in 2028.
AMERICA! ITS TIME TO FIGHT LIKE HELL AND REJECT COMMUNISM!!! FIGHT!!!! FUCK THE TAXES!!!! THEY'LL COME FOR THE SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE AND THEN THEY'LL COME FOR YOU!!!! ALL TO GIVE YOUR MONEY TO UKRAINE, BLACKS AND MEXICANS!!!! FIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>>1539579blacks and mexicans are more american than you are.
>>1539564I'm fairly certain Democrats proved taxes are passed to consumers in 2025.Did they not realize?
>>1539592What?
>>1539564The idea is nice but the biggest problem is that the state entered these Fiscal problems on its own. This wasn't because it wasn't taxing its millionaires, it was because the state is ran by retards, likely nepobabies, and they need to spend the money to fix the state bureaucracy that caused it to go broke in the first place. Giving $3 billion annually to a bunch of wasteful retards who crashed the state's budget in the first place isnt' going to make anyone's lives better.
>>1539586ah yes the best America.Mexico.
>>1539615At least they are North Americans. You are not.
>>1539613>to fix the state bureaucracy that caused it to go brokeWashington was never broke.
>>1539618I mean, they were after Democrats stole all the money.FYI, Paul Pelosi's light rail, still incomplete.
>>1539858What?
>>1539611Just residual junk code in ESL shill bot's programmingthe pedophile protectors are up in arms about this one because it stops their masters from raping more children
>>1539579The trump regime has proven capitalism has failed. Clearly it's time to make the parasitic rich pay.
>>1539564My rule is - Nobody should have more money than they can count within Solar System time.
taxation is theft, unless you tax only the poor
>>1539870>junk code in ESL shill bot's programming>makes a broken ass botpost lol
>>1539564>At issue is the state’s new “millionaires tax,” a 9.9 percent tax on income over $1 million a year that is expected to bring in more than $3 billion annually and, in the process, ease if not solve the state’s ongoing fiscal problems.Just an FYI for those who don't know. Washington State currently has a surplus of about $3Bn per year. They aren't short of money. They raised the "millionaires tax" with the promise that they would cut taxes on working people - ie: rework how the State raises money. One problem: they haven't and aren't planning to cut taxes.
>>1539883How did the billionaires hoodwink you into thinking this is true?
>>1539897If you take someone else's money to pay for your bills you are a bully and a thief
>>1539902When California takes 1% of every millionaires earning to fund mental health services in California, is it mostly people in the top 1% taking advantage of those mental health services? Or is it the other 99% getting by on their dime?
>>1539889>Washington State currently has a surplus of about $3Bn per year.Source?
>>1539903>Washington State is in CaliforniaThis is what happens when Russians post on /news/
>>1539936>only putting it on rich peopleThe rich aren't people.
>>1539940The rich are unfortunately the not people who own properties people rent, and put the products people buy in the stores.So, taxing the rich jews affects everyone negatively, as Democrats told us in 2025.
>>1539579You are part of the poors just like us. You will never be part of the rich it was impossible from birth. Stop supporting them and vote for your rights and children's future.
>>1539940They are, actually and getting more than a million in income is not actually crazy money for most middle class people >Boomer sells house they bought for $100k in 1983 for $1.5m >Plumber sells business >Grandad dies and his Boeing pension pays out to the estate >Farmer sells his crops It's a tax that most attorneys and doctors and engineers and successful small business men are going to pay at least once in their lives.
>>1539906Do you not know about the millionaires tax in california?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Mental_Health_Services_Act
>>1539943>Stop supporting them and vote for your rights and children's future.I already am.
>>1539979What does California have to do with Washington State?
>>1539993You were asking why taxation was theft unless you only tax the poor. You asked how billionaires hoodwinked me into thinking it was true. I replied by saying When California takes 1% of every millionaires earning to fund mental health services in California, is it mostly people in the top 1% taking advantage of those mental health services? Or is it the other 99% getting by on their dime? And then you deflect by saying this wasn't done in Washington. When your original question didn't require that conditional. Next time you should be honest with your question and say>How did the billionaires hoodwink you into thinking this is true?>P.S. You have to only use examples from the state of Washington
>>1540017Holy fuck commie liggerals BTFO by facts and logic. Sorry commies, taxation is theft and this American prefers to shoot thieves
>>1540019Based as fuck. Shoot all commie thieves
The fact of the matter is the tax burden already lies mostly on the shoulders of wealthy people. Poor people aren't paying their fair share into the system. No politiical party has the balls to do what actually needs to be done, tax the poor. You know poor people actually get tax returns? They don't pay taxes. They receive money funded by rich peoples tax dollars. So when poorfag commies bitch about MUH TAXES, I say "how much taxes did you pay last year, brokie?"
>>1540017>all the blue states are the sameIs this seriously your argument?
>>1540024I brought it up because I was familiar with the millionaires tax in California, and you didn't elaborate on the conditional requirement that I had to only cite examples from Washington State.Until the passage of a millionaires tax in 2026, the state of Washington was one of only seven states that does not levy a personal income tax, so I am not likely to find examples of the Millionaires tax in Washington, but I do think California is a fair comparison given they are both Democrat dominated West Coast states propped up by their tech industry
>>1540022Someone true. Except the poor pay the taxes of the rich via consumerism.Additionally FICA payments are uniform and those are paid by everyone at 7.65%.Let's keep in mind that the Catholic church dominated the world with a voluntary tithe of 10%.Where does all the money go? Into the Pelosi light rail project is my guess.
>>1540045What is supposed to be wrong with light rail?
>>1539564Oh my god, a whole ten percent income tax over a million dollars? How could they ever afford to feed their children?
>>1540077It's amazing there are poor simps ITT defending them for free.
>>1540077Idk dude, maybe its like a question of morality and not so much about millionaires or their money. Maybe, like, some people have a moral compass and wrong is wrong regardless of which end of the income spectrum it happens to.
>>1540049Paul Pelosi "somehow" won the contract for it and it's current cost is around 1 billion per mile.
>>1540077>It's OK to steal people's money!!!>I, King John, believe I am Robin HoodPunitive taxation is retardation and with the vast regulatory powers of the US government, the only (non)solution for every problem according to Dems/liggerals.You're sick fuckers, you know.
>>1540140And?
>>1540138>>1540148>it's ok for rich one rich person to take the resources for 100 peopleHow did you get this morally confused?
>>1540167Rich person doesn't "take" the resources for 100 people. They gather capital by the free exchange of goods and services. Elon Musk has a trillion dollars because he has provided a trillion dollars worth of value to consumers and investors. Its only taxation that results in resources being taken for nothing, or little, in return. You have a thirdworldist mindset. Liberate yourself.
>>1540231>Elon Musk has a trillion dollars because he has provided a trillion dollars worth of value to consumers and investors.Not even you honestly believes this.
>>1540234>Not even you honestly believes thisI don't need to "believe" anything. Its basic economics.
>>1540240It's not and you know it. The fact that Elon had to fold xAi into being part of spaceX to obscure the valuation of the two companies proves it's overvalued. From google:>During the COVID-19 pandemic, Elon Musk's net worth experienced one of the fastest accelerations in modern history. This growth was primarily driven by the soaring stock price of Tesla, which entered the S&P 500 in late 2020 after posting consecutive quarters of profitability. By early 2021, his wealth had surged past $180 billion, briefly making him the richest person in the world at the time. Critics often argue this valuation was decoupled from standard automotive industry fundamentals, relying heavily on speculative retail investment, meme-stock culture, and Musk's personal brand"Speculative retail investment" and "meme stock culture" are not "value to consumers and shareholders" like you seem to think.
>>1540244>its over valued Not the same argument as "he has taken resources from people"
>>1540246lmao surehttps://fortune.com/2026/06/23/elon-musk-trillionaire-paper-wealth-spacex-tesla-exposed-failure/>The logic should reassure rather than alarm: for Musk to keep this fortune, those things must actually happen. If Starship stalls or autonomy disappoints, his paper trillion evaporates. Tesla shed more than $800 billion in market value in early 2025 before recovering, and his net worth swings by tens of billions on ordinary trading days.>He is, by this measure, more exposed to failure than any person alive — tethered to outcomes most people would consider impossible, with no salary, limited liquidity, and no exit that doesn’t destroy the very thing he’s selling. And markets are not oracles; they misprice the future all the time, which is exactly the point — his fortune is a wager, not a certainty.>So the country faces an attractive asymmetry. Either Musk delivers a wave of growth larger than anything we’ve seen — enriching the pension funds and 401(k) holders who own these same shares alongside him — or he fails, and the fortune that offends people simply disappears. We have seen only the front end of this bargain. The valuation is the promise.>Some will object that a fortune this size is really about power, not money, and the worry deserves a real answer. One man now holds unusual sway across rockets, satellites, automobiles, artificial intelligence, a major communications platform and a web of government contracts — influence concentrated in a way that should make any republic pause. Every American taxpayer is paying for this. It absolutely is one rich person taking the resources for hundreds if not thousands, based on speculative bullshit.
>>1540250>lmao sureconcession accepted. >Every American taxpayer is paying for this. No we arent. > It absolutely is one rich person taking the resources for hundreds if not thousands,No its not. Willing investors invest, if their investment is sound their wealth grows, if its not it doesnt. No one is having resources taken from them, because its a free exchange of goods and services.
>>1540251Your imaginary concession is about as worthless as SpaceXAI's valuation.
>>1540167>wants to tax something that could be better regulated.How did you get this fucking stupid?>I'm a liggeral, they dont let me think outside of my pop culture politics.Got it.
>>1540268>forced buzzwordPost instantly disregarded
>>1540271>Good post>Instantly ignored.Ah yes, this is more your speed:You're esl.
>>1540250>Gay retards find out about fiat currency from Chinese tencent owned media.The article is literally telling you that you can't tax his trillions because you don't understand money and are a fucking idiot.>Musk’s fortune isn’t a hoard. It is a performance bond — a measure of innovation already delivered and innovation still owed. The difference matters enormously.
>>1540034>Democrat It's 'Democratic' ESL-shill
>>1540273The article is literally telling everyone the valuation of his companies is based on bullshit but you still think it's legit.
>>1540276It isn't and this is the weirdest forced meme from an ESL shill yet.
>>1540285Yes. Now you understand money slightly better.Since money is fake, gay, and does't exist, taxing the rich doesn't actually work because money is fake and the rich will just pass the taxes back to their consumers.The liggeral thought process assumes that there's a finite supply money, but that's not true. The reason you're poor is because you thought you could simply work for it.This also means your politics are stupid, faggy and based on a, notably retarded, notion that it's a limited resources tug of war between you and the rich. It's not. It's nepotism and gaming the system.Will you change your politics? Nope.
>>1540307Ron Paul is 90. What's it like having his worldview?
>>1540318Great.Why not post something that isn't shit one of these days?
>>1540333How about instead you go back to twitter or facebook with the other boomers and you stay there forever.
>>1540349You are aware Democrats and commies are the fucking boomers now, right?Leftfaggotry is no longer hip, cool, or for function people.
>>1540350Where do you people get this shit from?
>>1539901Then that person isnt allowed to use roads, drink from the water lines, or use power provided by the town/country/state. You want those things, you help pay for them. Or youre just a grubby leech.
>>1540251>"A free exchange">Electric bill goes up because gay AI data centers are built nearby and the cost is passed onto the local residents instead of the company who built itNah fuck all that shit. I dont want AI, i dont want to pay for AI, have the company who is creating it pay for it. They want it, they foot the bill.
>>1540352Maybe you should look at the federal budget, and look how much is spent on critical services look roads power & water, and how much is spent on redistributive social programs like Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid, and food stamps
>>1540350>claims someone else is the boomers now>"hip"'Kaaaaaay..... I wonder if you're going to get more or less coherent as this goes on...>or for function people.So you're a fucking dork, because you're worried about what's cool, which is something dorks and dumbass hipsters do.And you're using boomer terms to call other people out for being boomers.And you're not even functional enough to spell functional.Take a look everyone, this is what right wing retardation does to your brain.>herp derp, you da boomerNo you fucking brainlet, boomers are boomers, I'm a millennial. I grew up as a latchkey kid in the Golden age of the internet I know how to touch grass and do tech support, there will never be another generation like mine, especially with you stupid faggots constantly trying to speedrun societal collapse. I don't know if you're a toddler or a geriatric cosplaying one, but either way you're a fucking dumbass not worth the shit in your britches.
