SPOKANE, Wash. – In 2021, Washington passed a 7% tax on most realized capital gains over $250,000. Less than four years later, the voters will have an opportunity to repeal the tax.
“Working families like mine already pay up to 14% of our income in state taxes, while the wealthiest pay less than 4%,” Daree Blake, a mother of five, said in a news conference opposing the repeal of the tax. “Initiative 2109 would make this unfair tax system even worse.”
The brainchild of Kirkland-based conservative activist Brian Haywood, I-2109 will give voters the choice in November. Opponents, such as Washington State Senate Majority Leader Andy Bilig (D), say the measure would cost $5 billion in funding for education, childcare and early learning.
Haywood disagrees.
“I believe that education should be right there up at the top of the list of things we’re spending money on,” he said. “If it was really a priority, they would have funded it though the money they have, but they’re always choosing other priorities.”
Haywood says the Capital Gains Tax was always a backdoor attempt at implementing a statewide income tax, something he made sure will never happen earlier this year.
According to the Washington State Standard, the tax was only paid by 3,214 people in 2024, raking in $433 million. This is a dramatic downturn from 2023’s initial figure of $850 million, later adjusted to $786 million.
Haywood says, this volatility will lead to even more taxes.
“I don’t think they’re stupid,” he said. “They know there’s volatility, and then they’ll be able to go back to the voters and say ‘Hye, we’re sorry, we got this new program (and) now everyone’s going to have to fund it.”
