EVERETT HERALD: I-2109 would benefit state’s wealthy at kids’ expense

By The Herald Editorial Board

Won’t somebody think about the needs of the state’s billionaires?

That seems to be the call heeded by proponents of Initiative 2109, which would repeal the capital gains tax that the state adopted in 2021 and was upheld as constitutional by the state Supreme Court in 2023.

The state’s capital gains tax levies a 7 percent tax on the sale or exchange of long-term capital assets, specifically stocks, bonds and business interests; along with other exemptions, sales of real estate are excluded from the tax. Currently the tax is applied on receipts above the tax’s $262,000 floor. (When adopted, the floor started at $250,000, but that limit is adjusted each year for inflation.) This means that the tax is applied only to capital gains realized above that $262,000 floor.

The result, said Treasure Mackley, executive director of Invest in Washington Now, which advocates for tax fairness and is urging a no vote on I-2109, is that only 2/10ths of 1 percent of state residents have gains that fall under the tax. That works out to about 3,000 to 4,000 of the state’s wealthiest residents. according to state figures.

“Most of these were extremely, extremely wealthy folks in King County, but the revenues from this benefited kids at schools and families all across the state,” said Mackley, an Edmonds resident with a third-grader in Edmonds schools.

Read the full editorial in the Everett Herald.