Dori Monson’s Seattle tax plan for the homeless crisis
Nov 2, 2017, 3:18 PM
Demonstrators stand together in Seattle in support of an income tax on Seattle's top earners. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
This is the second best idea I’ve ever come up with in 22 years on the air. My best idea was to allow derelict RVs to park on the streets where Seattle council members live. But my Seattle tax plan will help fund solutions for those RVs and people living in tents.
RELATED: City council gets contentious over business tax
The Seattle City Council is developing its 2018 budget right now, and one thing they want to do is get more money for homeless services. To do that, some council members was to create a new tax — no surprise there. The tax would be on the top 10 percent of most profitable businesses in town, and would charge them for every hour each employee works.
My tax plan won’t cost most, if not all, of my listeners a penny. It won’t touch the private sector either.
Dori Monson’s Seattle tax plan
Council members have been telling us how poor and broke the city is, so now they have to raise your taxes, and taxes on the city’s biggest employers. Well, who’s a bigger employer than the city with 13,000 workers?
Some numbers: 4,679 City of Seattle employees earn more than $100,000 a year; 726 employees make more than $150,000; and 97 make more than $200,000. That’s all according to The News Tribune.
I propose we tax city employees — a head tax and an income tax. Here’s how:
- $100 tax per employee (100 x 13,000) = $1,300,000
- 5 percent tax on the 4,679 workers earning more than $100,000 = $19,280,000
- 7.5 percent tax on 726 workers earning more than $150,000 = $7,076,250
- 10 percent tax on the 97 workers making more than $200,000 = $1,940,000
Add all that up and the city could take in $29,596,250 to put toward the homelessness crisis.
That’s more than the $25 million the city estimates it could get from the head tax on employers. It’s almost enough to pay for the $30 million in contracts for homeless services the city has currently put out for bid.
And just like a good Progressive, I’m not going to touch the bottom 65 percent of city employees — the 8,000 workers making less than $100,000 annually. The 5 percent rate would cost those employees just $5,000 each; workers paying the 7.5 percent rate would give $11,250 annually; and the highest rate — 10 percent — would cost those workers $20,000 a year.
It’s a great idea because government employees are paid with tax money and it’s giving just a little bit back. Council members say it’s the least that the big companies can do — pay just another little tax. Well, this is the least Seattle’s highest paid employees can do to pitch in and help out during this homelessness crisis. It’s the least you can do Seattle.
The numbers reflected in this article are different than those aired on the Dori Monson Show to account for only taxing each pay level once.
