Washington state’s “millionaires tax” is a dark cloud hanging over business owners who worry it may also spread to earners who are not millionaires.
Seattle barber Matt Humphrey, who has locations in Ballard and Roosevelt, expressed his anxiety over the situation when speaking with Fox News, the outlet reported Saturday.
He said, “There’s a lot of fear and trepidation with what’s going on in our government when it comes to taxes. This new millionaire’s tax is definitely going to impact us. We’re afraid… they treat us a bit like an ATM when it comes to paying out taxes as a small business.”
Democrats in the state recently passed the “millionaire tax” that conservatives opposed, and the Fox article noted the Wall Street Journal editorial board deemed it a “con” that would end up hurting middle class workers.
“The new tax will impose a 9.9 percent income tax on households earning more than $1 million each year. The tax applies to any money earned after the first $1 million of someone’s annual income. It will take effect on Jan. 1, 2028, with the first payments due in April 2029, KOMO News reported,” the Fox article read.
According KING 5, voters in the state have long opposed income tax proposals but Democrats, who are currently in the majority, believe it was needed:
One lawmaker said, “If this bill passes today, future legislatures can easily come back and change the threshold from one $1 million, down to $500,000, to $250,000, they can apply it to anyone that they want to all across our state. It could become a universal income tax with just a simple majority vote, and without the people having the right to referendum. This is the wrong bill.”
After the millionaires tax was passed, Starbucks founder Howard Schultz said his family was leaving Seattle for Florida, Breitbart News reported March 11.
“Notably, the Starbucks founder also refrained from mentioning that the coffee giant has already begun shifting its corporate operations to Tennessee, ” the article read. “Moreover, Tennessee is also one of the nine states that does not impose a personal income tax. The red state offers a more competitive corporate tax structure than the blue state of Washington.”
Seattle’s socialist mayor, Katie Wilson, has welcomed migrants, legal and illegal, who can pose a huge economic burden on ordinary Americans “partly because they drive down wages, push up rents, and reduce corporate investment in productivity,” the outlet said, adding, “Many — not all — migrants also commit many crimes, further burdening Americans and deterring investment by companies.”
In addition, the outlet said, “Elites often gain when migrants shift wealth from ordinary people,” and Wilson’s campaign “championed higher taxes to help shift wealth back to poor voters.”
Per the Fox article, Steve Gordon, principal of Gordon Truck Centers in Pacific, Washington, is worried the tax will eventually affect people who are not millionaires.
“The income tax is the latest kind of battle that’s happened here recently. But while they frame it as, ‘It’s just a tax on millionaires,’ I mean that’s stacked on a whole bunch of other taxes and there’s nothing to keep it from expanding to regular citizens. And I think a lot of regular folks realize that what might be just for millionaires today supposedly will be coming for them later as they broaden that tax base,” he stated.
In February, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said of people fleeing blue states for red ones, “I tell people, everyone’s got to compete, including cities. For a city to compete of course it’s quality of life, it’s your subways, it’s your hospitals, but it’s also individual taxes, estate taxes, corporate taxes, and it drives people out.”
“So all you have to do is look at California versus Nevada, New York versus Florida. There’s a huge exodus taking place. It’s not good for the city. People just make a mistake, ‘Oh just tax these people,’ but that’s the outcome. And very often people think they’re being moral by doing that, but they’re not. What they’re doing is they’re hurting your own city and unfortunately people vote with their feet,” he added.
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