Overview
- The Democratic plan would tax only income above $1 million at 9.9% and sponsors project about $3.7 billion in annual revenue.
- At the Ways & Means hearing, sign-ins reached about 61,000 opposed versus 19,000 in favor, the chair extended testimony to two hours, and the legislative website experienced outages.
- Gov. Bob Ferguson said the draft returns too little to residents, while schools chief Chris Reykdal urged passage and outlined uses for property-tax relief, K‑12 expansion and two years of college tuition.
- Sponsors paired the proposal with offsets including a hygiene-products sales tax exemption, an expanded Working Families Tax Credit and B&O changes for small businesses, with roughly 30,000 taxpayers affected.
- The measure faces expected court challenges under long-standing state rulings on income taxes, and no committee vote was taken after the hearing.