Comments on Majority Rules Blog: Washington State Income Tax Makes Sense

On the troublesome side of a state sales and incom...

2009-05-13T16:07:00.000-07:00

On the troublesome side of a state sales and income tax combination, is the reality faced by Washington State’s retail businesses that are shuttering their doors at an alarming rate, because of hard economic times, but also, their overall inability to compete with Internet purchased goods. Washington State’s sales tax, at around 9%, creates an impossible competitive burden on the retail sector.

In addition to a 9% sales tax, Washington’s residents are also looking at the .95 cents a mile cost of driving their autos to go shopping. In addition to the competitive destroying sales tax, retailers are hit with a vast array of state, county, and city fees and license requirements to keep their doors open. The average savings on items purchased on the Internet can easily reach 35% over local buying. People are always going to get the best value possible with their money, just ask Walmart.

California has had a state income tax and a sales tax since the 1950s, and in 2008, ended up owning 40 billion dollars in a budget deficit, that it cannot repay. A sales and income tax combination is not going to solve the problems of government overspending.

America’s inflation rate of about 4% (true), and is the biggest thief of all; and eventually will destroy both the private and government sectors.

John

No, David, that's not a good idea. The point shou...

2007-05-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

No, David, that's not a good idea. The point should be to equalize the burden across all the levels of income, so that the total tax that people pay is as close to 20% of the total state and local tax expenses as possible. If we eliminated the sales and property taxes completely, the wealthy 1% would be paying 90% of all taxes, and even though I'm not a member of that 1% I don't think that would be fair.

Take a look at the entire collection of state pages of that report, and you'll see what I mean. In the Washington State report, those bars describing the tax burden should be straight across, using a combination of Income, Sales and Property taxes. We want the system to be fair to everyone, so that nobody can claim that they are being unfairly taxed no matter their income or wealth level. It was that "unfairness" that resulted in the current trend towards regressive tax system that is hurting all of us.

The only way that I would support the "State Incom...

2007-04-02T13:06:00.000-07:00

The only way that I would support the "State Income Tax" in the state of Washington if they eliminate all sales taxes, gas taxes and property taxes.

Dave P.
Marysville, WA