Dori: Tax money from Kingdome should go to taxpayers, not arts

When a department or grocery store overcharges you for an item, they reimburse you for the mistake. KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson wants to know why the government doesn’t work the same way.

Although the Kingdome was imploded more than a decade ago, the taxes that paid for a new roof have still been collecting. The roof was paid off last March, but tourism revenue exceeded expectations and collected $29 million in surplus taxes, according to King 5. A state law passed by the Legislature in 2011 makes it so all surplus funds be redirected, King 5 reports, and the King County Council is working on an ordinance to reallocate the funds to more than 100 arts, cultural and historical organizations.

Dori asked why the money isn’t returned to the taxpayers who overpaid.

“They should have returned the money to us, just like if you overpay for a pair of slacks at Nordstrom or if you overpay for a head of lettuce at Safeway,” he said. “If you overpay on a tax, they should give that money back to those of us who overpaid or they should have just stopped collecting the tax.”

Rather than putting the money in the general fund or reducing taxes, Dori believes politicians over collected the money in order to “buy votes” from the arts community.

“And because it’s the arts community, nobody in the compliant media here would ever question giving tax money to arts because arts are wonderful and untouchable and uncriticizable,” he said.

“You want to put it into the economy, put it back in our pockets so that we can spend it; the people who overpaid for this thing,” Dori added. “That’ll help the economy, won’t it?”

Beyond debating where the money should go, Dori and his producer, Jake Skorheim, wondered why the over-collection was allowed to happen in the first place.

Jake asked why it took nine months to figure out they were collecting money they didn’t need.

Jake Skorheim: Why is that legal? Why are they able to keep a tax running for nine months that they no longer have a need for? … There must be a valve that they shut off, they say, we don’t need this anymore. Legally we have to turn this off because we shouldn’t be taking money we don’t need. Right?

Dori Monson: You’re asking the wrong guy, because I have no earthly idea how this could be.

Dori suggested the government should give him the surplus $29 million and send him to Vegas, where he’d let it ride in order to balance the budget.

“And then we would have a tax holiday, if I can do it,” he said. “And pressure would be on me … I could do that. I could turn that $29 million into a few billion.”