WA Senator: Democrats mulling tax that could push businesses out of state

Republicans in Washington state are saying that Washington Democrats are drafting a new tax for the 2021 legislative session, which is being called the employer compensation tax. So how exactly does it work? State Senator Lynda Wilson joined the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH to discuss.

“What it does is it taxes employers with more than $7 million in annual revenue, and they would pay a tax on wages paid to employees that make over $150,000. So this is basically the Seattle tax — it’s straight out of the Seattle City Council,” she said.

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“It’s just like the capital gains. We know that the capital gains is an income tax, but they’re trying to say that it isn’t. This one particularly is aimed right at employers with large (amounts of) employees. So what’s that going to do? It’s going to start capping off the ability to earn more right because the employers won’t want to increase that.”

Wilson says that this type of tax had a negative impact in Seattle and the timing of it is a poor choice.

“It’s not working in Seattle, and businesses said they were going to leave and businesses are leaving. I think I just read somewhere that Seattle lost 210 businesses so far. So this is poking the bear, and the bear this time is the golden goose — it’s the economy. And so we’re poking the golden goose,” she said.

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“They always take this economy for granted, so raise taxes and hurt everyone else. I mean, at some point, more and more businesses are going to leave. They’re going to calculate into their return on investment and they’re going to leave … not just Seattle, but they’re going to go leave the state. And I guarantee you there are states out there that will welcome those businesses.”

Listen to the Jason Rantz Show weekday afternoons from 3 – 6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here.