Foes of WA income tax race to collect initiative signatures

Signature-gatherers for an initiative to ditch Washington’s new income tax did steady business at a Tumwater church Wednesday afternoon.

Seated under a tent outside The Remnant church, a quartet of volunteers spent three hours showing people where to sign petitions for the measure, IP26-645, to give voters the opportunity this fall to erase the controversial tax.

It was easy work. No sales pitches. Everyone had come purposefully to help get the initiative on the ballot this November. The measure would repeal the 9.9% tax on individual and household wage income above $1 million a year before it starts.

“It’s important. I’m quite worried about taxes here,” said Denise Icks of Olympia, one of the first to arrive shortly after 3 p.m.

While she wouldn’t be paying the tax, she said she thinks that could change over time.

“I think it’ll get there eventually,” she said. “That’s the intent.”

Let’s Go Washington, the initiative sponsor, hosted the “Super Signer” event, which drew a couple hundred people. It’s one of several planned ahead of the July 2 deadline to turn in at least 308,911 valid signatures of registered voters to qualify for the ballot. State election officials suggest submitting at least 390,000 to account for invalid ones.

The group estimated it had collected 165,000 signatures as of Wednesday morning.

The tax targeted by the initiative was part of legislation passed earlier this year by Democrats and signed by Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson. Every Republican in the Legislature and a handful of moderate Democrats opposed it.

This tax is set to begin in 2028 if it survives in court and this likely challenge on the ballot. Collections would begin the following year from an estimated 21,000 filers.

Erasing the income tax is not all that the initiative would do.

It would bar state and local governments from passing any tax on individual income, regardless of source. And it would add language into state law to define income as “any gain or benefit measured in money derived from an individual’s capital, labor, property, or other source.”

Several provisions in Senate Bill 6346 embraced by Ferguson and Democratic lawmakers would be retained if the initiative passes.

These include expanding a tax credit program for low-income families, providing tax relief for more businesses, and eliminating sales tax on diapers, personal hygiene products and certain over-the-counter drugs.

Those details didn’t get discussed among petition signers and initiative supporters Wednesday. For them it is all about the income tax.

“This is 100 percent against the state constitution,” said David Sellstrom, senior pastor at The Remnant.

Those interviewed all shared the same concern that even though the tax only applies to high-earners under the new law, nothing prevents the Legislature and governor from lowering the threshold to cover them in the future. 

Ferguson, responding to that line of argument, vowed in a social media post last week to “veto ANY attempt to lower the threshold or raise the rate of this tax” as long as he’s governor.

No one who came to the Let’s Go Washington tent Wednesday put any stock in that pledge.

“You know it’s the camel’s nose under the tent,” said Doug Hicks of Lacey. “It scares me for my kids. It scares me for my grandkids.”