Freedom Foundation Helps Foil Seattle’s Income Tax Scheme

Freedom Foundation Helps Foil Seattle’s Income Tax Scheme

Freedom Foundation Helps Foil Seattle’s Income Tax Scheme

We won.

The Washington State Supreme Court on Friday respected almost a century of case law — and the repeatedly expressed will of state residents — by slapping down the city of Seattle’s brazenly unconstitutional income tax proposal.

The Freedom Foundation filed one of several lawsuits on behalf of Seattle residents challenging this scheme, and today is a day of complete vindication.

By refusing to hear the case, the court clearly sent a message that convoluted legal interpretations hatched behind closed doors are no substitute for unambiguous law. Hopefully telling the city and its cohorts in organized labor their scheme wasn’t even worth considering will send a message not to try this again.

At the end of the day, even residents of deep-blue Washington recognize they’re already being overtaxed, and no matter what lies anyone tells you, opening the door to an income tax isn’t just going to shift the tax burden onto someone else. It’s going to raise the bar for everyone.

This is a great day for the taxpayers of this state. The measure was the brainchild of the Economic Opportunity Institute, which claims to be an independent policy organization but, in fact, receives much of its financial support from — who else? — SEIU and the state’s government employee unions. They realize anything that raises taxes also increases the size of government. And anything that grows government, by definition, means more dues-paying public employees for the unions.

Almost certainly this was the first phase of plan that would eventually have imposed an income tax statewide.

Determined action by the Freedom Foundation and our brave plaintiffs helped avert what would have been an economic disaster for Washington.

Vice President for News and Information
jrhodes@freedomfoundation.com
Jeff is a native of West Virginia and a graduate of West Virginia University with a degree in journalism. He served in the U.S. Army at Fort Lewis, Wash., as a broadcast journalist and has worked at a number of newspapers in West Virginia and Washington. Most recently, he spent 11 years as editor of the Port Orchard (Wash.) Independent, which earned the 2011 Washington Newspaper Publishers’ Association’s General Excellence Award as the top community newspaper in Washington. Previously, he was editor of the Business Examiner newspaper in Tacoma, Wash., for seven years. Jeff lives in Lacey; he and his wife have grown twin daughters.