For nearly a century, the State of Washington’s constitution has prohibited an income tax. Washington residents like it that way — ballot measures to allow for a state income tax have been rejected by voters ten times in that period, most recently in 2010. But Washington legislators who want an income tax are trying to get around this in the most ham-fisted way possible — simply pretending words mean something they don’t.
Rather than respecting the will of their constituents, Washington legislators are trying to get around that pesky constitutional hurdle by pretending that a tax on capital gains is an “excise tax,” not an income tax. Unlike income taxes, excise taxes are allowed under Washington’s constitution.
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