Way back this July, before Jenny Durkan had turned herself into a one-term mayor, the Democrat-controlled Seattle City Council took advantage of everyone being at home because of Governor Jay Inslee’s initial mandated lockdown by deciding to create a new income tax to continue its assault on Seattle’s business community.
Despite the voters of Washington having consistently voted against an income tax – 10 times since 1934, the extreme, money-grabbing, Seattle City Council just won’t stop. The far Left wants to stick its little local government paws a little deeper into your wallet, because the council thinks it knows how to spend your money better than you do.
Using a questionable interpretation of the state constitution to try and circumvent the will of the voters by claiming they aren’t passing an income tax, the tax-happy Democrats on the city council think you won’t notice if they tax business income directly, instead of personal income. The end result is the same – income is taxed, and people will pay more taxes than they did before.
Democrat Councilmember – and likely Mayoral candidate – Teresa Mosqueda proclaimed that “We are in the midst of a health and economic crisis that even a strong economy like Seattle may not be able to recover from quickly.” So, in light of this dire situation, what her response – immediately pass a new tax.
The Seattle City Council gleefully announces you can ‘Jump into the New Year with Seattle’s JumpStart Jobs Tax’ as if it was a good thing. The tax rate varies between 0.7% and 2.4%, depending on company size and payroll amounts.
The really nasty thing about this new income tax is if you earn $149,999.99 or less, there is no tax due. If you earn one penny more at $150,000.00 then you pay the tax on the whole $150k, about $200 a month. A salary of $150,000 might sound like a lot, but in Seattle that’s just enough to get you a slightly fire damaged one-bedroom apartment in the CHAZ, a bus pass, and a new pair of Birkenstocks.
Shift is predicting a lot of people in Seattle will be paid $149,999.99 next year if this new tax is not rightfully tossed by the courts.
Perhaps you think you will avoid the tax because you work in Redmond and only live in Seattle? Nope – not according to the new rules issued by the City Council. If you have a Seattle home address, you have the privilege of paying the tax.
Working at home because of Inslee’s lockdown orders? You still pay, even if your employer is in another city.
The new tax comes after the Socialist councilmember Kshama Sawant failed last year to pass her own divisive version of the tax during her ‘Tax Amazon’ campaign. Sawant, in a personal vindictive stab at Amazon’s CEO after the passage of the new tax, said in a video “And if you, Jeff Bezos, want to drive that process forward by lashing out against us in our modest demands, then so be it.”
What Sawant fails to realize in her socialist red haze of anger is that businesses can just leave if they don’t like what city politicians are doing. In response to the new tax, and tired of fighting Seattle’s so-called leadership, Amazon promptly started moving more jobs (and tax revenue) to Bellevue. Sawant may have wounded the cash cow she wanted to milk for all her socialist plans and programs, but she won’t care. Her goal is not economic prosperity and safe communities, it’s a Soviet-style socialism which will destroy jobs and the very city she claims to care about.
In the meantime, however, the exodus will continue from Seattle. When the City coffers run dry as workers leave in droves, Sawant will likely just blame someone else for her failed experiment, move to a new city, and try again.
The only good thing about this ridiculous tax, if it stays intact, is that rents will be going down in Seattle. Fewer people will want to live there anymore.
